News

The term “paranoia,” derived from the Greek &lduo;para” (beside) and “nous” (mind), was coined as a descriptor of psychopathology by Heinroth in 1818.1 By the end of the 19th century, 50% to 80% of patients in asylums in German-speaking coun­tries had received a diagnosis of paranoia.1 Beginning in 1899, Kraepelin’s efforts to define paranoia more precisely resulted in a decrease in diagnoses of paranoia in favor of dementia praecox and, later, schizophrenia.1,2 This narrowing of the definition of paranoia is reflected in current nosology and practice. In DSM-IV-TR, the prevalence of delusional disorder is estimated at 0.03% of the general population and accounts for 1% to 2% of psychiatric admissions. The prevalence of paranoid personality disorder is 0.5% to 2.5%; this condition accounts for 10% to 30% of psychiatric admissions.3

Every life ends with death. For the elderly, death is the end of a long life that has been shaped by personal history and world events, various relationships, well-set personality characteristics and, of course, happenstance. Each of these, in addition to the specific circumstances that herald death, shapes the experience of dying in old age.

Suppose your new patient, Mr. Jones, tells you he is feeling “really down.” He meets all DSMIV symptomatic and duration criteria for a major depressive episode (MDE) after having lost his wife to cancer 2 weeks ago. Should you diagnose major depressive disorder?

Youths aged 6 to 16 years with any subtype of ADHD participated in the study. Comorbid bipolar disorder, pervasive developmental disorder, psychotic illness, anxiety disorders, and tic disorders were exclusionary criteria. Patients with other comorbid psychiatric disorders, including major depressive disorder, were allowed to participate if ADHD was the primary diagnosis.

A Supreme Court decision expected in the next 6 months will probably help to determine whether and how Congress strengthens the FDA’s authority on drug labeling.

Late-life depression is both underrecognized and undertreated, and the impact of medical comorbidity may mask depressive symptoms. Depression further complicates the prognosis of medical illness by increasing physical disability and decreasing motivation and adherence to prescribed medications and/or exercise or rehabilitation programs

Studies of antipsychotics in child prenpresented at the 48th Annual New Clinical Drugs Evaluation Unit (NCDEU) Meeting, conducted by the NIMH in Phoenix, May 27-30, provide some data where there have been relatively little on the increasing use of these agents.

An increasing youth suicide rate may point toward an emerging public health crisis, necessitating national efforts to develop effective interventions, experts recently warned.

After months of controversy and pressure from colleagues and the media, the American Psychological Association (APA) has voted on a resolution stating that psychologists may not work in settings with or take part in consultation of detainee interrogations operated overseas by the CIA, including Guantanamo Bay.

Like more and more cancer patients today, I have outlived several prognoses and am still hanging around, in a diminished life, trying to outlive the latest. Sooner or later, all of us get swept up into one or another of the collectively available cancer story lines in the culture.

The jaw-dropping indignity was easy to miss at a time when the O.J. Simpson murder trial was unfolding. A man named Colin Ferguson had been charged with killing 6 people and wounding another 19 after an apparently indiscriminant shooting spree aboard a Long Island railroad train.

Recent headlines point to research that suggests atypical antipsychotics are no more effective than their older counterparts in the treatment of children and adolescents with schizophrenia and psychosis.

Major depressive disorder has become psychiatry’s signature diagnosis. Depression is diagnosed in about 40% of patients who see a psychiatrist. This percentage is double that of just 20 years ago.

The FDA has cleared the first transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) device (Neuro-Star) for the treatment of major depressive disorder in adults who show no improvement after an adequate trial of a single antidepressant.

Pharmaceutical giants Eli Lilly and Merck recently announced that beginning in 2009 they will publicly disclose information about payments made to doctors.

Racial/ethnic and sexual orientation minorities and women historically have been relegated to social, legal, and economic disadvantage in the United States.

A Blue Ribbon report and a hearing in a House subcommittee raised fresh questions about the sufficiency of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) response to suicides among veterans-especially those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

A discovery about the brain protein KIBRA, commonly found in the kidneys and brain, could lead to future treatments for Alzheimer disease (AD). Investigators at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), lead by Corneveaux and Liang, in Phoenix found that the risk for AD is 25% lower in persons who carry the memory-enhancing KIBRA gene.1 This fi nding indicates that there might be a link between KIBRA and some of the proteins with which it interacts.

Participants from around the globe recently came together to create an international consensus statement on bipolar disorder that was presented at the 21st Congress of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP).

Another day without timeto write: patients call in crisis,apple trees need stakes,cord wood waits to be stacked,and rows of pink-topped turnipsremain buried in half-frozen earth.

Although several studies indicate that psychotherapy (alone or in combination with medications) can help psychiatric patients reach recovery faster and stay well longer, a declining number of office-based psychiatrists are providing psychotherapy to their patients.

Chronic posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may occur secondary to combat, terrorism, civilian assaults including physical and sexual abuse, or other traumatic experiences.

Scientists from the University of Michigan are beginning a phase 1 clinical trial for the treatment of cancerrelated pain that uses a novel gene transfer vector-an agent used to carry genes into cells-injected into the skin to deliver a pain-relieving gene to the nervous system.

Perhaps you read the editorial commentary in the August issue of Psychiatric Times in which our editor-in-chief, Ronald Pies, MD, wrote about ongoing congressional hearings into potential conflicts of interest (COIs) among prominent psychiatrists?

Our returning military veterans remind us dramatically of the importance to consider traumatic brain injury (TBI) as a potential comorbid illness in cases of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The common causes of comorbid TBI and PTSD are assault and battery to the head, head trauma (personal or work-related injuries), civilian or military explosions, inflicted head trauma in children, motor vehicle accidents, and suicide attempts by jumping. Prevalence figures for comorbid TBI and PTSD historically have been lacking

Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do is a controversial, opinionated book that discusses the effects of computer gaming on children.

Late-life depression is both underrecognized and undertreated. The impact of medical comorbidity may mask depressive symptoms.

In last month’s column (“Painting Neural Circuitry With a Viral Brush,” Psychiatric Times, October 2008, page 16), I used Michelangelo’s famous fresco, “Hand of God Giving Life to Adam” on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel as a metaphor to introduce a series of technologies that have allowed researchers to map the complex interactions of neural connections in continuously functioning neural tissues.

The National Comorbidity Survey estimates that approximately 50% of the population in the United States is exposed to traumatic events and that the lifetime prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is approximately 7.8%.

Too often news headlines exert a major influence on our patients-and nothing in child psychiatry grabs headlines like the alleged overprescription of medicines. Physicians sidestep the debate, assuring their patients and themselves that each prescription is written only after careful consideration of risks and bene-fits.