July 11th 2024
What is new in research on alcohol use disorder?
Southern California Psychiatry Conference
September 13-14, 2024
Register Now!
Updates on New and Emerging Therapies to Improve Outcomes for Patients With Major Depressive Disorder
View More
PER® Psychiatry Summit
November 7, 2024
View More
5th Annual International Congress on the Future of Neurology®
View More
2023 Annual Psychiatric Times™ World CME Conference
View More
Clinical Consultations™: Managing Depressive Episodes in Patients with Bipolar Disorder Type II
View More
Patient, Provider, and Caregiver Connection™: Exploring Unmet Needs In Postpartum Depression – Making the Case for Early Detection and Novel Treatments
View More
Medical Crossfire®: Understanding the Advances in Bipolar Disease Treatment—A Comprehensive Look at Treatment Selection Strategies
View More
'REEL’ Time Patient Counseling: The Diagnostic and Treatment Journey for Patients With Bipolar Disorder Type II – From Primary to Specialty Care
View More
Real Psychiatry 2025
January 17 - 18, 2025
View More
More Than ‘Blue’ After Birth: Managing Diagnosis and Treatment of Post-Partum Depression
View More
Patient, Provider & Caregiver Connection™: Reducing the Burden of Parkinson Disease Psychosis with Personalized Management Plans
View More
Expert Perspectives in the Recognition and Management of Postpartum Depression
View More
Computer Gaming--When Virtual Violence Becomes Real
November 1st 2007Virtual games, such as World of Warcraft, The Sims, and Second Life, are played by thousands every day, allowing people, worldwide, to connect and share information. In fact, the virtual "worlds" that can be created in these games are now being used to make money (through buying and selling virtual objects), to form partnerships and friendships, and even to conduct business; it is easy to see how many become engrossed in this alternative life.
Read More
Psychiatric Emergencies in Bipolar and Related Disorders
November 1st 2007Part 1 of this article, discussed a general approach to treating psychiatric emergencies in patients with bipolar and related disorders, as well as the assessment and management of agitation and impulsive aggression. Part 2 focuses on psychosis, suicidality, and specific treatments relevant to patients in emergency settings who are agitated or have bipolar disorder.
Read More
Many of the things that we busy ourselves with have no apparent utility. Blogging, playing games, and collecting come to mind. To declare that we are compelled to do these things may be too strong, but we do pursue these activities with little deliberation and without concern as to their usefulness. The ubiquity of these pursuits suggests that these activities or their variants helped humans survive at some point and that they now rest on innate brain programs.
Read More
Marijuana Use, Withdrawal, and Craving in Adolescents
November 1st 2007Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug in the United States and worldwide. Initiation of use typically occurs during adolescence. The most recent epidemiological data indicate that in the United States, 42% of high school seniors have tried marijuana, 18% have used it in the past 30 days, and 5% use it daily.
Read More
The Intersection of Mental Health and Successful Aging
November 1st 2007One consequence of the "graying" of the world's population is that psychiatrists, along with all health care professionals, will increasingly be providing services to older adults. In the United States, the first set of people belonging to the baby boom generation turned 60 in 2005, and the number of people older than 60 will soonoutnumber children for the first time in recorded history.
Read More
Neurological Complications of Perinatal Asphyxia
November 1st 2007The degree of asphyxia is best ascertained by measuring the amount of fetal acidosis determined by umbilical arterial blood. An umbilical arterial pH of less than 7.0 is seen in about 0.3% of deliveries.1 It indicates a severity of acidosis that places the fetus at risk for permanent neurological damage because of asphyxia. However, the outcome of infants with umbilical cord pH of less than 7.0 who required neonatal intensive care is relatively good. Eighty-one percent can be expected have a normal examination at discharge.
Read More
All of us have heard the phrase "between a rock and a hard place," and many of us have been in the situation that the idiom describes. However, few of us (other than English professors) likely know the origin of the saying and even fewer of us know how it applies to clinical psychiatry. Delving into these seemingly unrelated queries will be the subject of this month's column.
Read More
Treatment Resistance in Youths With ADHD and Comorbid Conditions
October 1st 2007Since its introduction in DSM-III in 1980, attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has proved to be a developmental disorder with many causes and complex behavioral, cognitive, and emotional manifestations that can impair academic functioning, occupational achievement, social relationships, and self-esteem.
Read More
SSRI Prescribing Rates and Adolescent Suicide: Is the Black Box Hurting or Helping?
October 1st 2007Suicide is the third leading cause of death in younger (10- to 14-year-old) adolescents in the United States and the leading cause of death in this age group in other countries, including China, Sweden, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand.
Read More
NAMI Programs Educate Families of Mentally Ill
October 1st 2007In 20 years of dealing with severe schizophrenia in her sister and daughter, it occurred to psychologist Joyce Burland, PhD, that she "had never been given any instruction on how to be helpful to them," so in 1991, she wrote up a highly structured course with a standardized curriculum and training guide.
Read More
Perspectives on Consultation-Liaison in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
October 1st 2007Child and adolescent psychosomatic medicine, usually in the realm of the pediatric psychiatric consultation-liaison service, seeks to address the complex relationship between a child's physical illness and affective state with the goal of improving the child's emotional well-being.
Read More
Psychiatric Naturalism and the Dimensions of Freedom: Implications for Psychiatry and the Law
October 1st 2007In part 1 of this essay, I argued that individual freedom is not only compatible with determinism but dependent on it. I also argued that freedom is not an "either/or" condition. Rather, actions may be more or less free, and therefore, more or less "responsible," depending on a number of contingent factors, yielding various degrees of freedom. Psychiatrists, I suggested, can be most helpful in so far as we can describe, study, and categorize these degrees of freedom and the psychopathological conditions that undermine them. In part 2, I elaborate on the "naturalistic" model of freedom and autonomy and suggest how it may be applied to psychiatric disorders and medico-legal determinations of culpability.
Read More
New Practice Parameter for ADHD
October 1st 2007The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry recently published a practice parameter with evidence-based guidelines for the assessment and treatment of children and adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Recommendations for the best treatment practices were made based on empirical evidence and clinical consensus, and the strength of these recommendations was based on the extent and degree of these variables. This column will provide a summary of the parameter.
Read More
Recognition of Apathy as Marker for Dementia Growing
October 1st 2007A recent 4-year study linked apathy to a hastened decline in persons with Alzheimer disease (AD). Another recent study found that persons with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) were more likely to convert to AD a year later if they also had apathy.
Read More
Cognitive Complaints: Their Role in Detecting MCI and Dementia
October 1st 2007Short of mass screening of the elderly using a neuropsychological test or some yet-to-be-determined biomarker, persons with cognitive disorders come to the attention of the health care system only when symptoms are recognized. Occasionally, physicians identify cognitive deficit on routine examination or when they notice patients having trouble following instructions (eg, taking medications properly)
Read More
Research on Psychedelics Making a Comeback
October 1st 2007In 1993, Charles Grob, MD, professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Medicine, and a research team were invited to study the physical and psychological effects of ayahuasca, a plant mixture that produces psychedelic effects.
Read More
Pick Disease: Navigating the Frontotemporal Dementia Diagnosis
October 1st 2007The clinical diagnosis of Pick disease can be one of the most difficult facing the neurologist. Those patients found to have lobar atrophy usually present clinically with bouts of irrational behavior, bulimia, marked reductions in speech, abulia, and apathy.
Read More
Children and Video Games: How Much Do We Know?
October 1st 2007There is no shortage of hyperbole when politicians of all stripes describe the nature and effects of video games. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney proclaimed, "Pornography and violence poison our music and movies and TV and video games.
Read More
A New Adaptation of Integrated Psychological Treatment for Patients With Schizophrenia
September 15th 2007Integrated psychological treatment (IPT)--which was developed by a research group in Bern, Switzerland, for patients with schizophrenia--is a distinctive and practical approach to rehabilitation.
Read More
SSRIs and Pregnancy: Putting the Risks Into Perspective
September 15th 2007Mood disorders are common in women and typically emerge during the childbearing years. While pregnancy has traditionally been considered a time of emotional well- being, recent data indicate that about 10% to 15% of women experience clinically significant depressive symptoms during pregnancy.
Read More
Can We Predict Response to Antidepressants?
September 15th 2007In this article, we use the example of major depressive disorder (MDD) to review research efforts to identify predictors of treatment response, both to antidepressant medications and to psychotherapy. We describe the promises and limitations of this research, with some emphasis on brain imaging studies, and then discuss how this work may be integrated into clinical practice in the future.
Read More
Adherence to Treatment Regimens in Major Depression: Perspectives, Problems, and Progress
September 15th 2007Adherence, in a medical context, refers to the degree to which a patient follows the treatment plan that has been agreed on between the prescriber (usually, but not always, a physician) and the patient.
Read More