Alcohol Abuse

An appreciation of melancholia as the principal definable mood disorderoffers a better guide to diagnosis and treatment than does DSM-identified major depression.

The idea that schizophrenia and bipolar disorder might be caused by infection is not new. New research on infectious agents in patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder has implications for psychiatric clinicians.

Noise, or unwanted sound, is a pollutant and an environmental stressor. The frequency of noise events seems to have increased in recent years while the amount of the day without noise has lessened.

A review of nonconvention treatments for dementia and mild cognitive impairment, including dietary modification, Ginkgo Biloba, Huperzine-A, Phosphatidylserine, CDP-choline, Idebenone, and exercise.

The impact of terrorism reaches many aspects of health and health care: acute and chronic symptoms of anxiety and depression, changes in health-related behaviors, and long-term strain and tension.

Parkinson disease practice parameters

A second opinion on the need for new warnings on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) drugs from the FDA advisory committee contradicts The Pediatric Advisory Committee recommendation.

The search in identifying risk factors affecting cognitive health and longevity, including Alzheimer disease and other dementias, has broadened to include genes and lifestyle factors.

Pediatric psychosomatic research shows that emotional, behavioral, and psychiatric symptoms are found more often in children and adolescents with chronic illnesses than in healthy children.

The perinatal period is a high-risk time for some women to experience a new onset or exacerbation of a mood disorder that may require emergency psychiatric care.

Medical school graduation usually involves the Hippocratic Oath, in which physicians vow not to intentionally harm their patients. Keeping patients safe is another basic principle of patient care. Physicians are charged with ensuring that their patients are in a safe environment and minimizing risks to their patients by carefully selecting treatment options. In emergency psychiatric settings, patient safety is critical, especially when the patient is a danger to himself or herself or to others.

All physicians need to be aware of the medicolegal aspects of practicing medicine, but because emergency psychiatrists must sometimes treat patients against their will or act as consultants to determine capacity, they must be especially vigilant when dealing with the overlap between law and medicine.

Trichotillomania (hair-pulling) was once thought to be rare, but recent estimates indicate that it affects 2% of people.

The authors discuss gender differences found in patients with schizophrenia. Their group is the first to explore the possibility that gender differences in schizophrenia are mediated by differences in integrative network activity, reflected in a synchronous phase of high frequency (40 Hz) gamma activity.

What does the new set of U.S. Public Health Service guidelines for treating tobacco dependence say? Should everyone, regardless of mental health status, receive treatment?

The renaming of consultation-liaison psychiatry as psychosomaticmedicine, a new formal subspecialtyof psychiatry, may require someadjustment in our understanding ofthese terms. Both consultation-liaisonpsychiatry and psychosomatic medicinehave focused on treatment and researchof illnesses with mind-body interactions.Despite considerable overlap,consultation-liaison psychiatry hastraditionally been associated with treatmentand clinical research of comorbidmental disorders of the medicallyill, while psychosomatic medicine hasbeen associated with research into thephysiologic mechanisms underlyingmind-body interactions and classicalpsychosomatic diseases such as hypertension,asthma, and ulcerative colitis.

While teen drug use continues to decline, it is the baby boomers who are suffering the greatest losses from substance abuse, and whose plight is largely overlooked by policy makers.

In the late 18th century, a French surgeon named Pouteau performed 120 successive lithotomies with an extraordinarily low mortality rate. His secret was the use of innovations used widely today. Why weren't his methods more widely adopted by other physicians in his time?

Each year, more than 2 million individuals in the United States sustain a traumatic brain injury. Increased vigilance for previously undiagnosed or incidental TBIs in general mental health populations may lead to more effective clinical management.

While an antipsychotic medication is the first step of treatment for schizophrenia, it is increasingly recognized that comprehensive care requires the integration of adjunctive therapies and attention to long-term treatment goals.

Cannabis, or marijuana, has been consumed by humans for centuriesand remains one of the most widely and commonly used illicitsubstances. The authors review the evidence supporting and refutingthe association between cannabis exposure and psychotic disorders.

The recent evolution of neuropsychiatry/behavioral neurology as a subspecialty represents a paradigmatic shift regarding the responsibility of psychiatrists in diagnosing and managing behavioral disorders with concomitant and demonstrable brain pathology such as dementia or head injury. This authors define the clinical usefulness of electroencephalography in evaluating neuropsychiatric disorders.

Sleep-associated movement disorders are common in the general population. When patients complain of sleep disturbance, psychiatrists should consider,and question for, features of nocturnal movement disorder.

Many of our female patients are more worried about breast cancer than heart disease. Because psychiatrists will almost certainly care for patients who have a history of breast cancer, Dr Riba reviews some of the major issues to consider.

Pilot studies show that preventing PTSD after vulnerable persons are exposed to extreme life-threatening trauma is possible, although we are in the very early stages of knowing exactly what to do.

Psychiatrists specialize in mental phenomena, but this special expertise does not confer license to ignore the additional information that can be gathered from physical signs.

Dementia is characterized as a progressive and chronic decline in cognitive function, not limited to memory impairment, which significantly interferes with baseline daily functioning and frequently involves behavioral disturbances. It is known that behavioral problems in dementia negatively affect patients and caregivers. These disturbances lead to institutionalization, increased costs and caregiver burden, and a poorer prognosis.

Parkinson disease, addictions, pathologic gambling

Guardianship laws--the provisions aimed at ensuring that elderly and incompetent individuals receive the necessities of life (including medical care and financial protection)--are drawing fire around the country amid charges of abuse, fraud and civil rights violations.

Aware that mental illness generally begins early in life and that four teenagers commit suicide every day, several organizations and agencies are stepping up efforts to expand voluntary mental health screening and suicide prevention initiatives for youth--but they are doing so in the face of stigma and vocal opposition.