Researchers who have spent their careers studying schizophrenia and mood disorders might be forgiven a bit of “biomarker envy.” At long last, it seems that the neurologists and neuropsychiatrists have developed some fairly sensitive and specific “lab tests” for Alzheimer’s Disease (AD).
Register now!Psychiatric Times Career ExpoBack by popular demand with new contentPsychiatric Times is pleased to announce our virtual career expo. As an attendee, you will have access to organizations looking for qualified psychiatrists and allied mental health professionals to fill positions across the US.
There have been multiple criticisms of both the proposed content of DSM-5 and the process by which it is being developed. I have expressed my concerns about its proposals for diagnoses dealing with pain, especially the creation of the new diagnosis of Complex Somatic Symptom Disorder, to readers of Psychiatric Times in my Pain Management columns.
Is there a link between heartbreak and addiction? A recent study shows that the same areas of the brain were affected as those associated with addiction, reward, craving, and depression.
Dr Muller, in his piece “Psychiatric Symptoms Can be Understood Even When These Symptoms Cannot Be Explained,” makes a number of assertions about DSM-III and its successors that reflect a mischaracterization of its “descriptive approach.”
What is transparent to one person may be opaque to another. It is clear to me that before symptoms can be used to make a valid psychiatric diagnosis the meaning and context of these symptoms must be taken into account. Many clinicians do not see it that way. Neither did the DSM-III and its subsequent editions.
In continuing efforts to help the overwhelming number of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with PTSD, the US Army is using therapy dogs.
One cannot but be impressed at the ingenuity of our DSM-5 mavens at conjuring up new diagnostic syndromes.
Since the early twentieth century, when Alois Alzheimer and Emil Kraepelin constructed it as a unified clinical-pathological entity, Alzheimer’s disease has been both one of the most stable and one of the most problematic neuropsychiatric entities.
The basic problem is that the body is extremely complicated and most diseases don't arise from anything resembling simple genetic causes. We are the miraculous result of an exquisitely wrought DNA engineering that has to get trillions and trillions of steps just right. But any super-complicated system will have its occasional chaotic glitch.
What Every Psychiatrist Needs to Know to Be Prepared
Decreasing the Clinician’s Risk
Keys to diagnosis, assessment, and management.
As with all medical emergencies, psychiatric emergencies are among the most clinically challenging situations.
Is there growing evidence suggesting that paternal depression is associated with interpersonal problems with the mother and maternal depressive symptoms? Can severe psychiatric disturbances result from paraneoplastic disorders? Find out the answers to these questions in this week's quiz.
After years of war, more and more Iraquis are seeking medical care for trauma-induced mental illness. However, demand for such treatment far outpaces supply. In a country of 30 million people, only 100 psychiatrists are available to offer care.
Business groups and leading behavioral managed care companies have mounted a multifront attack on the new mental health parity law. The Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA) went into effect on January 1, 2010, for employer plans starting after that date. However, companies have been awaiting a delayed final rule interpreting the terms of the MHPAEA.
I offer all of this as a way of describing how I became involved in intensive psychotherapeutic efforts with several adolescents who I then continued to see, often for many years following their inpatient experiences.
As many as 80% of patients who use herbal preparations and other natural products regard these therapies as the primary treatment of their ADHD symptoms.
Ultimately, Dr Ghaemi endorses a pluralistic approach and a “method-based psychiatry” in contrast to the eclecticism of the BPS. This method-based approach recognizes that one method may be more correct than others on the basis of empirical data and conceptual soundness (the “less is more” view), versus the BPS model, in which all methods can be equally correct (the “more is better” view).
I can still hear the click of clue tiles
It is rather difficult for me to avoid turning this greeting article into an homage to Dr Pies. My mirroring of his farewell piece2 with my title and preliminary quotes was meant to signify my great respect for him. How much I have learned and benefited from his wisdom, patience, knowledge, and compassion over the past 4 or so years cannot be measured.
Many Americans seem angry at President Obama’s seeming lack of anger over the BP fiasco. Frustration with the environmental calamity in the Gulf is perfectly understandable. Anger with those who should have foreseen and prevented this horrendous situation is also understandable, and-up to a point-quite justifiable.
A recent study reports that only a small fraction of substance abuse treatment facilities provide specialized services for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community, and that the majority of those are privately run.