Alzheimer Disease & Dementia

It’s a classic risk/benefit dilemma: Does preventing suicidality-assuming suicidality can predict suicide-justify scaring some doctors away from prescribing antidepressants for young patients?

The prevalence of major depression following stroke ranges from 10% to 40%. Other psychiatric disorders, including anxiety disorders, apathy and cognitive impairment are also common. Psychiatrists need to be on the lookout for symptoms not just immediately poststroke, but up to six months after the event.

In the second part of this series, read about the special issues psychiatrists face when treating women, children and adolescents, and elderly people with bipolar disorder and dementia. What are the recommendations for care and monitoring strategies to maintain patients on effective, long-term treatment regimens?

It has been well established that there is a high incidence of depression in conjunction with Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia. What are the best assessment and diagnostic methods, and which treatments will produce the best results?

Depression and dementia or Alzheimer's disease often go together. The presence of dementia may also increase the odds of depression. What can clinicians do to treat these two often comorbid conditions?

New developments in neuroimaging and effective diagnostic tools can help obtain early diagnosis of and timely treatment for Alzheimer's disease.

The promise of natural products as possible sources of new treatments for Alzheimer's disease and other dementing illnesses is on the rise. Scientific evidence for the 13 dietary supplements most commonly used for memory impairment is analyzed and evaluated.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a devastating and debilitating neurodegenerative condition, and the most common cause of dementia among the elderly. Despite considerable advances in the cellular and molecular biology of AD, however, little progress has been made in identifying the causes of the disease.

Patients with Alzheimer's disease and psychosis often have a more severe course of illness, with higher incidence of caregiver burden and hospitalization. Differentiating this disorder from Alzheimer's disease uncomplicated by psychosis is key to maximizing more positive outcomes.

The Human Genome project has provided an abundance of genetic information, including identification of many disease-causing genes. Clinical applications, genetic counseling and the potential ethical issues raised by the availability of genetic testing are all areas of concern in gene research. Will genetic counseling in classical genetic diseases help to provide guidelines for behavioral disorders?

The obvious sometimes bears repeating: Sick people have trouble thinking. They may be suffering from a delirium, a dementia or a more subtle disturbance of cognition caused by fever, drugs, infection, inflammation, trauma, hypoxemia, metabolic derangement, hypotension, tumor, intracranial pathology, pain and so forth.

Atypical antipsychotic treatment for borderline personality disorder (BPD) and augmentation therapy with olanzapine (Zyprexa) or estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) for patients with mood disorders were among the research questions addressed at the American Psychiatric Association's annual meeting in Toronto. Following are some brief reports of selected presentations.

Every evening, just when quiet comes, she awakens on the prowl.

Depression, subcortical dementia and normal aging: all three may have similar neurobehavioral manifestations. So how does a clinician make a differential diagnosis?

During a career that has spanned four decades and taken him around the globe, Ari Kiev, M.D., J.D., has studied everything from folk psychiatry in Haiti to community psychiatry in England.

This two-year study of 341 patients is the largest controlled trial conducted in a population with moderately severe Alzheimer's. The primary end points, assessed quarterly, were the onset of severe dementia (clinical dementia rating of 3); death; institutionalization; and loss of ability to perform at least two of three basic daily activities (eating, grooming and toileting).