News

Psychiatrists, primary care physicians, neurologists, nurse practitioners, psychiatric nurses, and other mental health care professionals. Continuing medical education credit is available for most specialties. To determine if this article meets the continuing education requirements for your specialty, please contact your state licensing board.

Because hoarding occurs in a substantial portion of patients with neurodegenerative disorders, neurologists are likely to encounter patients with this problem. Until recently, they had little to offer their patients or the patients' caregivers. Compulsive hoarding can cause severe impairment and presents intriguing psychopathology, yet it has received little systematic study, and no effective treatment is currently on the market.

Sound Bites

Pain relief provided by a greater occipital nerve (GON) block for migraine occurs more rapidly than previously reported-within 5 minutes of injection-according to researchers at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. In 25 patients with unilateral episodic or transformed migraine, headache

Mental Notes

About half of the US population doesn't understand their doctors' instructions, according to health literacy advocates within the AMA and the American Academy of Neurology (AAN). Is it any wonder why clinicians are frustrated with patients' lack of compliance with therapy and lack of follow-through filling prescriptions and presenting for diagnostic tests-not to mention litigation issues that may arise, in part, from physician-patient miscommunication?

Signals

Patients with Alzheimer disease (AD) often have Lewy body pathology (LBP). Although the exact significance of LBP is unknown, LBP appears to be more common in persons with familial AD related to gene mutations of presenilin 1 (PSEN1), presenilin 2 (PSEN2), and amyloid precursor protein. To examine the genetics of LBP, the team from Puget Sound HCS, led by James B. Leverenz, MD, associate professor at the University of Washington in Seattle, reviewed 25 familial AD cases that included 9 known PSEN1 mutations and 14 familial AD cases that included a single PSEN2 mutation. The brain stem, limbic cortex, and neocortex were examined for LBP.

Perceptions

Yes, there's been a changing of the guard. Larry Hand, who played a major role in launching Applied Neurology as a unique source of clinical news and information, has moved on to other challenges. The editorial staff wishes him well. In a relatively short time, Applied Neurology, which debuted in January 2005, has caught the interest of the specialty by providing a comprehensive range of easy-to-read and timely information for neurologists and other specialists. The staff is committed to continuing in this vein.

In many situations, patients--even those who are acutely mentally ill--and physicians agree on a treatment regimen. In some cases, however, patients may disagree with the treatment after the fact or refuse treatment altogether. Although the physician's primary concerns are patient care and safety, the legalities of medicine are ever present and must be kept in mind. The following cases illustrate some of the medicolegal challenges that may arise in the emergency care setting.

The author continues his analysis, begun 25 years ago, of the use of polypharmacy versus monotherapy with an antipsychotic agent. Although antipsychotic polypharmacy has been condemned over the years, the practice nevertheless continues and has shown marked increase with the introduction of atypical antipsychotic agents.

Poetry from Dr Richard M. Berlin, professor of psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

The concept of Primum non nocere ("First, do no harm") is a cornerstone of medical education. This Latin phrase reminds physicians that medical treatments can potentially have both good and bad effects. Sometimes, the ultimate net benefit of an intervention is clear to both the physician and the patient, and treatment proceeds unimpeded by doubt. When the net benefit of a treatment is less certain, in most branches of medicine patient choice and self-determination play a major role in determining which "gray zone" treatments are appropriate. For the most part, this is also true in psychiatry.