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Several classes of hypnotic medication are available: the older barbiturates and their derivatives; benzodiazepines; chemically distinct “z-compounds”; antihistamines and antihistaminic antidepressants; and melatoninergic compounds. The use of hypnotic medications continues at a high rate. However, some switching to the shorter-acting benzodiazepines has occurred. The z-compounds-eszopiclone, zolpidem, and zaleplon-have become popular; they seem to have fewer residual effects than the benzodiazepines. Even so, care is needed in prescribing such hypnotics for the elderly.

This Special Report presents an important set of articles that considers controversial issues relevant to the practice of psychiatry. These articles demonstrate that what we do as practitio­ners is often based on incomplete evidence and/or reliance on experience and the art of psychopharmacology. There are considerable limitations to “evidence-based medicine” as applied to the issues considered and also to what can be said officially about “off-label” uses of medications. All that said, these articles represent a very interesting set of perspectives on important and, to date, unresolved problems for which our science falls quite short of giving us definitive answers.

Child murder by parents is an upsetting topic for both the public and clinicians. It is even more distressing when a mother kills her child than when a father does because we expect mothers to love and protect their children at all costs.

Lecturing around the country has left us with the powerful impression that both psychiatrists and primary care physicians are hungry for new ways to think about and manage depression and the myriad symptoms and syndromes with which it is associated-including attention deficit disorder, insomnia, chronic pain conditions, substance abuse, and various states of disabling anxiety.

For Allen, that film was the measure of Bergman’s genius, and it reached aesthetic heights that he conceded his own films would never attain. Bergman, like his Knight, Allen observed, could not put off the ultimate checkmate nor would his great art secure for him a personal afterlife as intellectuals wanted to believe. Allen was sure that Bergman would barter each great film he had made for another year of life so he could go on making films.

In Comfortably Numb, author Charles Barber reports that in 2002, 16% of the inhabitants of Winterset- a quintessentially American town in Iowa-had an antidepressant prescribed for them and asks, “Why did Winterset want to get numb?” With this question, Barber begins a journey through the world of psychiatry and psychopharmacology that spans most of the book.

Anew study shows that the rate of remission in adolescents treated for depression for 36 weeks was more than double that of adolescents treated for 12 weeks, whether treatment was with an antidepressant, cognitive-behavioral therapy, or a com­bination of both.1

In a highly charged environment in which reports of potential conflicts of interest between physicians and pharmaceutical companies dominate the headlines almost daily, we want to point out that the supplements that were mailed with this month’s issue of Psychiatric Times were based on meetings funded by drug companies. The supplement on treatment-resistant depression, which was sponsored by Lilly USA,includes an article that focuses on the company’s drug Symbyax.

The financial tsunami that has hit the United States and most of the rest of the globe is causing unparalleled misery for hundreds of millions. In America, millions of jobs have been lost, and it appears that millions more will be lost. In a nation where home ownership is a cherished expectation and goal, millions are losing their homes. The GNP is shrinking, the value of nearly all investments has plummeted, and the retirement plans of millions have been decimated.

President Obama’s 2 nominees for the top positions at the FDA have 3 psychiatrists as parents between them. Both Margaret Hamburg, nominated as commissioner of the FDA, and Joshua Sharfstein, nominated as deputy commissioner, are medical doctors and have held top public health positions: Hamburg in New York and Sharfstein in Baltimore. Both of Hamburg’s parents are psychiatrists, according to Neal L. Cohen, MD, director of the Center for Public Mental Health at Hunter College in New York, who knows Hamburg from her days in the early 1990s when she served for 6 years as commissioner of health for the City of New York.

Thanks to the recently passed stimulus package, as much as $44,000 over 5 years will be available to those physicians who become “meaningful users” of electronic health records (EHRs). Physicians who meet the adoption standards in the bill, which have to be ironed out by the Department of Health and Human Services, will qualify for the payments from Medicare. However, physicians who balk run the risk of being docked a tiny portion of Medicare payments starting in 2015.

His hand is a farmer’s hand, nails outlined with crescents of black earth, skin calloused, tough as a paw.

The FDA recently released its long-awaited but highly controversial final guidance permitting drug and device manufacturers to distribute medical journal articles and medical or scientific texts that discuss off-label uses of approved products.

I couldn't help but notice that it has become possible lately to lift recent editions of the Sunday New York Times with only a single hand. Not too long ago, the Sunday edition had a lot more reassuring heft to it.

Lecturing around the country has left us with the powerful impression that both psychiatrists and primary care physicians are hungry for new ways to think about and treat depression and the myriad symptoms and syndromes with which it is associated-including attention deficit disorder, insomnia, chronic pain conditions, substance abuse, and various states of disabling anxiety. Primary care physicians also seem especially excited to learn that depression is not just a psychiatric illness but a behavioral manifestation of underlying pathophysiological processes that promote most of the other conditions they struggle to treat-including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and dementia.1,2

Psychotropic treatment can often prevent the relapse of psychotic and mood symptoms. However, many patients take medication intermittently or not at all; or the symptoms may be only partially responsive to medication. Therefore, there is a need for interventions that can supplement the effect of medication and improve treatment outcomes.

The assessment and treatment of psychiatric symptoms in persons with cognitive dysfunction are becoming increasingly important. Prevalence estimates of dementia in the United States range from 5% in those aged 71 to 79 years to 25% to 50% in those 90 or older.

Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are a group of 5 neuro developmental conditions (autism, Asperger syndrome, pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified [PDD-NOS], Rett syndrome, and disintegrative childhood disorder).1 Once thought to be rare, the incidence of these disorders is now estimated to be 1 in 150 children in the general population.2 Furthermore, the number of recognized cases has increased markedly in recent years.

The co-occurrence of obsessive-compulsive symptoms (OCS) and psychotic illness has been a challenge for clinicians and investigators for more than a century. Over the past decade, interest in this area has burgeoned because of recognition of higher-than-chance comorbidity rates of schizophrenia and OCD.

Optimal management of bipolar disorder (BD) includes the careful selection and regular ingestion of appropriate medication to stabilize mood. Unfortunately, between 40% and 50% of patients with BD in routine clinical settings take breaks or forget to take their medication or even discontinue the drug altogether.1-3 Treatment nonadherence is associated with mood relapse, hospitalization, and suicide.4,5

What exactly is a “mental disorder”? For that matter, what criteria should determine whether any condition is a “disease” or a “disorder”?

Medications cannot be marketed in the United States without an FDA determination that they are safe and effective for their intended use. To obtain such certification, pharmaceutical companies submit their products to rigorous scrutiny (eg, in vitro studies, animal studies, human clinical trials) and present the subsequent data to the FDA, which determines whether the medication in question is safe and effective for a specific purpose.

I almost destroyed the backseat pocket of an airline seat this summer. The vandalism was inadvertent, assuredly, though the anger that fueled it was not. While waiting for my plane to take off, I had read a magazine article claiming to show that fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) studies were “uncovering” the voting preferences of test subjects. An adjacent article announced that researchers could now predict the buying preferences of other test subjects using the same imaging technologies.

Clinicians who treat patients with strong antisocial traits commonly struggle with the tension between conceptualizing them as either man or beast.2 On one hand, there is the well-intended goal of helping the offender develop into a more functional “human being.” On the other, there are the common emotional reactions of anger, disgust, and even fear of predation.3

My mentors taught me anonymity,to be a blank screen, to reflectand hear the space betweenmy patients’words and their sighs,

Lord, protect me from all the institutions that want to guard me from harm-Congress, PhRMA, academics, journal publishers, and even my APA. They fear I will be brainwashed. They fear-heaven forefend- I may use drugs “off-label.” I hesitate to inform you-it’s too late! I already prescribe medications offlabel, and I do it every day.

The debate over physician involvement in assisted suicide has become relatively quiet since the federal courts and the Supreme Court, in a 6 to 3 decision on January 17, 2006, upheld Oregon’s 1997 Death With Dignity Act, which allows assisted suicide under certain conditions. However, that debate gave birth to the related controversy about the management of pain.

Psychiatrists will have to take the lead in ensuring that deep-brain stimulation (DBS)-approved by the FDA in February for the first time for use in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)-is used appropriately.

Patients with bipolar depression who exhibit even minimal manic symptoms are at heightened risk for switching into mania if they receive antidepressant medication, according to a new report from the Bipolar Collaborative Network.

Allegations of suppressed research, promotion of drugs for unapproved uses, payment of kickbacks to physicians, and ghostwriting of a major journal article surfaced recently when the Department of Justice unsealed a civil complaint against Forest Laboratories and Forest Pharmaceuticals, Inc.