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).
