April 8th 2024
How can consulting psychiatrists help the team provide culturally appropriate care for diverse patient populations?
The Expanding Role of Fluid Biomarkers in the Diagnosis and Management of Patients With Alzheimer Disease
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Clinical Consultations™: Considerations for Customizing Care Plans for Patients with Parkinson Disease Psychosis
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Expert Illustrations & Commentaries™: Visualizing New Therapeutic Targets in Schizophrenia
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Advances In™ Schizophrenia: Expanding the Therapeutic Landscape
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Southern California Psychiatry Conference
September 13-14, 2024
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Updates on New and Emerging Therapies to Improve Outcomes for Patients With Major Depressive Disorder
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5th Annual International Congress on the Future of Neurology®
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2023 Annual Psychiatric Times™ World CME Conference
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Clinical Consultations™: Managing Depressive Episodes in Patients with Bipolar Disorder Type II
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Patient, Provider, and Caregiver Connection™: Exploring Unmet Needs In Postpartum Depression – Making the Case for Early Detection and Novel Treatments
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Medical Crossfire®: Understanding the Advances in Bipolar Disease Treatment—A Comprehensive Look at Treatment Selection Strategies
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'REEL’ Time Patient Counseling: The Diagnostic and Treatment Journey for Patients With Bipolar Disorder Type II – From Primary to Specialty Care
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More Than ‘Blue’ After Birth: Managing Diagnosis and Treatment of Post-Partum Depression
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Patient, Provider & Caregiver Connection™: Reducing the Burden of Parkinson Disease Psychosis with Personalized Management Plans
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Nonconventional Approaches in Psychiatric Assessment
June 1st 2008Everyone is unique at the level of social, cultural, psychological, biological, and possibly "energetic" functioning. By extension, in every person, the complex causes or meanings of symptoms are uniquely determined. The diversity and complexity of factors that contribute to mental illness often make it difficult to accurately assess the underlying causes of symptoms and to identify treatments that most effectively address them.
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A syndrome described as purging following the ingestion of normal or small amounts of food in normal-weight persons has gained increasing attention in the field of eating disorders. Various terms have been used in the literature for this newly characterized syndrome, with purging disorder and eating disorder not otherwise specified-purging (only), or EDNOS-P, used most frequently.
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The Development and Use of Modern Psychotherapeutic Medications
April 16th 2008The modern era of psychopharmacology is only 60 years old, having begun with the discovery of the psychotherapeutic benefits of reserpine, lithium, monoamine oxidase inhibitors, and chlorpromazine in the late 1940s and early 1950s, which was followed a few years later by the synthesis and testing of the tricyclic antidepressants and benzodiazepines.
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Common Issues in Female Sexual Dysfunction
April 16th 2008"I've lost my interest in sex." As psychiatrists, we hear this concern (if we ask) from women in a variety of situations: those who are depressed, postpartum, menopausal, traumatized, and those who have been treated with psychotropic medications. Thankfully, we have many interventions, both behavioral and pharmacological, to use in addressing sexual issues.
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Vietnamese Amerasians and Former Political Prisoners
April 16th 2008Vietnamese Amerasians and the former political prisoners of South Vietnam are living legacies of the Vietnam War. Now that many live in the United States, it is important for psychiatrists to have an understanding of their life experiences and be able to recognize psychiatric disorders that are common among them.
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Why Evidence-Based Medicine Can, and Must, Be Applied to Psychiatry
April 2nd 2008In the second century ad, a brilliant physician had a powerful idea: 4 humours, in varied combinations, produced all illness. From that date until the late 19th century, Galen's theory ruled medicine. Its corollary was that the treatment of disease involved getting the humours back in order; releasing them through bloodletting was the most common procedure and was often augmented with other means of freeing bodily fluids (eg, purgatives and laxatives).
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Prevention and Treatment of Addiction
April 2nd 2008In 2006, substance dependence or abuse was diagnosed in about 22.6 million persons in the United States.1 Addiction-related morbidity and mortality pose a major burden to society, costing our economy more than $500 billion annually: about $181 billion for illicit drugs,2 $168 billion for tobacco,3 and $185 billion for alcohol.4
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The Journey of the Locum Tenens
February 1st 2008There are no books written by, or even about, locum tenens psychiatrists. Why is that? Why is their story-the story of psychiatrists who "hold a place," participate a bit, and then move on-not shared? Is there nothing in their experience worth sharing?
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SUBSTANCE ABUSE AND ADDICTION Advances and Challenges in Addiction Medicine
January 1st 2008Recent years have witnessed exciting developments in understanding and treating addictions. For example, it seems that almost weekly we get new insights into the neurobiology underlying vulnerability to addiction. Similarly, there have never been more medications available to treat the spectrum of addictive disorders, especially alcohol, nicotine, and opioid dependence. In addition, studies continue to underscore the crucial role of psychosocial treatments in recovery from addiction.
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Culture and Substance Abuse: Impact of Culture Affects Approach to Treatment
January 1st 2008There have been numerous definitions of culture. Dwight Heath1 offers a simple definition: "It [culture] is a system of patterns of belief and behavior that shape the worldview of the member of a society. As such, it serves as a guide for action, a cognitive map, and a grammar for behavior."
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Bipolar Disorder in Later Life
December 1st 2007Among clinicians and researchers in geriatric psychiatry, interest in late-life bipolar disorder is growing, fueled not only by the increasing size of this clinical population but also by the recent discovery that mood stabilizers such as lithium may influence the pathogenesis of Alzheimer disease.
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Gifts From Patients: Pragmatic Model Offers Guidance
November 1st 2007When offered a gift by a patient or a patient's family, a psychiatrist faces a significant practical challenge to negotiate "the poles of rule-bound rigor and individually tailored flexibility," the McLean Hospital Ethics Committee wrote in a recent article.
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Managing Late-Life Depression With Combined Medication and Psychotherapy
November 1st 2007There are hundreds of studies that show that pharmacotherapy is used to treat depression in adult and geriatric populations. There are far fewer studies that test the efficacy of psychotherapies and even fewer studies that focus on combined treatment for older patients.
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All of us have heard the phrase "between a rock and a hard place," and many of us have been in the situation that the idiom describes. However, few of us (other than English professors) likely know the origin of the saying and even fewer of us know how it applies to clinical psychiatry. Delving into these seemingly unrelated queries will be the subject of this month's column.
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SSRI Prescribing Rates and Adolescent Suicide: Is the Black Box Hurting or Helping?
October 1st 2007Suicide is the third leading cause of death in younger (10- to 14-year-old) adolescents in the United States and the leading cause of death in this age group in other countries, including China, Sweden, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand.
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Perspectives on Consultation-Liaison in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
October 1st 2007Child and adolescent psychosomatic medicine, usually in the realm of the pediatric psychiatric consultation-liaison service, seeks to address the complex relationship between a child's physical illness and affective state with the goal of improving the child's emotional well-being.
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In this article, we discuss recent advances in drug transporters and nutrient-transporter interactions that can impact drug bioavailability in the systemic circulation and the brain. We also present emerging research strategies that may facilitate the discovery and clinical development of predictive diagnostic tests to identify patients at risk for treatment resistance.
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Abuse of Prescription Drugs Close Behind Alcohol, Marijuana
September 1st 2007About 60% of users of illegal prescription drugs receive them free from friends or relatives, H. Westley Clark, MD, JD, director, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT), of the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), told attendees at the American Society of Addiction Medicine 38th Annual Medical-Scientific Conference
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The Crisis of Overdiagnosed ADHD in Children
July 1st 2007This commentary arises from my concern about the superficiality that characterizes the process of diagnosing attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children--usually followed by the prescription of one of the most powerful drugs on earth, methylphenidate.
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Anxiety in the Medical Patient
March 1st 2007Anxiety is a ubiquitous, natural affective state that is essential for evolutionary survival. Nearly as common, however, are experiences of anxiety that exceed social, psychological, or physiological needs, leading to functional impairment. Indeed, primary anxiety disorders, including panic disorder, social phobia, and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), represent the most common category of mental illness in the United States. Secondary, or reactive, anxiety is also widespread and can arise not only from numerous medical causes but also from the psychological process of coping with illness.
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Mental Illness in US Latinos Addressed in Survey, Outreach Efforts
March 1st 2007Early findings from a national study are shedding light on differences in the type and prevalence of mental disorders in US-born and immigrant Latinos, as well as differences among Latinos from various countries of origin.
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