March 2nd 2024
From personality disorders and common comorbidities to the effects of abortion bans on mental health, here are highlights from the week in Psychiatric Times.
The Expanding Role of Fluid Biomarkers in the Diagnosis and Management of Patients With Alzheimer Disease
View More
Clinical Consultations™: Considerations for Customizing Care Plans for Patients with Parkinson Disease Psychosis
View More
Expert Illustrations & Commentaries™: Visualizing New Therapeutic Targets in Schizophrenia
View More
Advances In™ Schizophrenia: Expanding the Therapeutic Landscape
View More
Southern California Psychiatry Conference
September 13-14, 2024
Register Now!
Updates on New and Emerging Therapies to Improve Outcomes for Patients With Major Depressive Disorder
View More
2023 Annual Psychiatric Times™ World CME Conference
View More
5th Annual International Congress on the Future of Neurology®
View More
Clinical Consultations™: Managing Depressive Episodes in Patients with Bipolar Disorder Type II
View More
Medical Crossfire®: Understanding the Advances in Bipolar Disease Treatment—A Comprehensive Look at Treatment Selection Strategies
View More
Patient, Provider, and Caregiver Connection™: Exploring Unmet Needs In Postpartum Depression – Making the Case for Early Detection and Novel Treatments
View More
'REEL’ Time Patient Counseling: The Diagnostic and Treatment Journey for Patients With Bipolar Disorder Type II – From Primary to Specialty Care
View More
More Than ‘Blue’ After Birth: Managing Diagnosis and Treatment of Post-Partum Depression
View More
Achieving Remission in Generalized Anxiety Disorder
February 2nd 2009Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is a prevalent, chronic, debilitating mental illness associated with marked impairment in daily functioning.1 An ongoing evolution of the definition of GAD has resulted in a bifurcation of the historical anxiety neurosis designation.2 A diagnosis of GAD currently implies chronic, excessive worry lasting at least 6 months and 3 of the possible 6 somatic or psychological symptoms (restlessness, fatigue, muscle tension, irritability, difficulty concentrating, and sleep disturbance).3 GAD typically presents in an episodic pattern of moderate improvement or remission and relapse characterized by a chronic and complicated clinical course.
Read More
SSRIs as Antihypertensives in Patients With Autonomic Panic Disorder
February 2nd 2009The cardiovascular properties of serotonin (5-HT) have been known for some time-its name reflects its presence in serum and its action in increasing vascular tone. Serotonergic medications are routinely used to treat depressive and anxiety disorders, and the association of depression with cardiovascular disease has become well established.2 Recent studies have confirmed the colloquial wisdom that anxiety (especially panic) and hypertension are linked.
Read More
“What Do You Mean, I Don’t Have Schizophrenia?”
February 2nd 2009My first job after residency involved working at a large Veterans Affairs hospital in an outpatient dual diagnosis treatment program that focused on the comorbidity of schizophrenia and cocaine dependence. Having recently completed a chief resident position at the same hospital’s inpatient unit that focused on schizophrenia without substance abuse, I was struck by how “unschizophrenic” my new patients were. They were organized and social. Their psychotic symptoms were usually limited to claims of “hearing voices,” for which insight was intact and pharmacotherapy was readily requested.
Read More
Understanding and Managing Adolescent Disruptive Behavior
February 1st 2009The words attributed to Socrates resonate with the perspectives of many contemporary parents and clinicians.1 The endurance of the concern suggests something fundamental about the psychopathology of deviant, disruptive behavior of youth. Yet clinicians struggle to understand its origins, to help parents control their children, and to help the children control themselves. Clinically, this manifests in failed pharmacological treatments, incompleted courses of individual therapy, problems in engaging families in treatment, and controversies over which therapy is most effective.
Read More
Enhancing Suicide Risk Assessment Through Evidence-Based Psychiatry
January 2nd 2009Suicide risk assessment is a core competency that all psychiatrists must have.1 A competent suicide assessment identifies modifiable and treatable protective factors that inform patient treatment and safety management.2 Psychiatrists, unlike other medical specialists, do not often experience patient deaths, except by suicide. Patient suicide is an occupational hazard. A clinical axiom holds that there are 2 kinds of psychiatrists: those who have had patients commit suicide-and those who will.
Read More
Medical Comorbidities in Late-Life Depression
December 1st 2008Late-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
Read More
Traumatic Brain Injury and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
November 1st 2008Our 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
Read More
Sleep Disturbances Associated With Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
November 1st 2008The 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%.
Read More
The Differential Diagnosis of Childhood Developmental Disorders
October 1st 2008Reducing complex human experiences into a psychiatric diagnosis can be a daunting task. For children with developmental disorders, this process is even more complicated and requires distilling often incomplete and frequently contradictory scientific evidence.
Read More
Underdiagnosing and Overdiagnosing Psychiatric Comorbidities
October 1st 2008Diagnostic assessment of psychiatric disorders and their comorbidities is a challenge for many clinicians. In emergency settings, there is no time to conduct lengthy interviews, and collateralinformation is often unavailable.
Read More
Psychiatric Comorbidity Associated With Pathological Gambling
October 1st 2008Gambling has become a major recreational activity in the United States. Formerly confined to a few states such as Nevada and New Jersey, legal gambling opportunities have exploded across the nation in the past 2 decades.
Read More
Substance Abuse in Women With Bulimia Nervosa
October 1st 2008The high rate of comorbid substance abuse in women with bulimia nervosa (BN) has remained consistent in the literature. This article reviews the prevalence of substance abuse in BN and summarizes treatment approaches for persons with BN and comorbid substance abuse.
Read More
Adolescents who present with symptoms that suggest a psychotic disorder pose a number of diagnostic and treatment challenges. This article attempts to provide a practical guide to the assessment and management of adolescents with severe psychotic illness, including schizophrenia, schizophrenia-like disorders, and bipolar disorder.
Read More
From Prevention to Preemption: A Paradigm Shift in Psychiatry
August 2nd 2008Universal prevention has been a focus of psychiatric research for the past 4 decades. Using a public health approach, research has shown that mitigating major risk factors, such as poverty and early life stress, and promoting protective factors can improve behavioral outcomes.
Read More
Intimate Partner Violence: Practical Issues for Psychiatrists
August 2nd 2008The term “domestic violence” emerged in the United States with the rise of the women’s movement in the 1970s. Before that, violence between partners was considered a private matter. A specific type of domestic violence, intimate partner violence, refers to violence between intimate partners. Public awareness campaigns help us identify one type of intimate partner violence in which one partner, typically the male partner, is the aggressor, and the other partner, typically the female, is the victim.
Read More
Behavioral Comorbidities in Rheumatoid Arthritis
August 1st 2008While tremendous therapeutic advancements have been made, patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have a myriad of comorbidities, including fatigue, depression, and sleep disturbances. Data on the comorbidity of psychiatric disorders with arthritis are also striking: according to the NIMH Catchment Area program, the lifetime prevalence of psychiatric disorders among patients with RA is 63%.
Read More
Depression and Cardiovascular Disease
August 1st 2008Depression is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and death in many ways, directly and indirectly. It is independently linked to smoking, diabetes, and obesity-all of which are risk factors for coronary heart disease (CHD).1 Depressed patients are more likely to be noncompliant with treatment recommendations, including diet, medications, and keeping appointments, and are more likely to delay presentation for treatment with an acute coronary event.2-4
Read More