April 27th 2024
The experts weighed in on a wide variety of psychiatric issues for the April issue of Psychiatric Times.
Marketing Off-Label Uses: Shady Practices Within a Gray Market
For pharmaceutical companies, off-label use of a drug represents a substantial “gray market,” to which the company is unable to sell their product directly, yet may be a significant revenue stream. Some drugs have been used more for off-label purposes than for originally approved indications.1
Read More
Delirium With Catatonic Features: A New Subtype?
July 10th 2009Delirium has been recognized and described since antiquity. It is a brain disturbance manifested by a syndrome of diverse neuropsychiatric symptoms. Various terms have been used for delirium, such as acute brain disorder, metabolic encephalopathy, organic brain syndrome, and ICU psychosis.
Read More
Death of Psychiatrist and Other Soldiers Triggers Inquiry Into Military’s Mental Health Care
July 6th 2009Alarmed by the rising suicide rate among soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and “wanting to help,” Matthew “Matt” Houseal, MD, a psychiatrist with the Texas Panhandle Mental Health Mental Retardation Center (TPMHMR), reenlisted as an Army Reservist and volunteered to serve in Iraq.
Read More
A Visit to Auschwitz: Reflections on Biology and the Psychiatric Sequelae of Political Violence
July 3rd 2009If I closed my eyes, it would have been easy to imagine that I was visiting a peaceful city park. The sounds of birdsong and children’s laughter rang in the air, and the odor of freshly cut grass filled my nostrils. But the sweet smells and soothing sounds belied the horror of the place where I actually stood-inside the wrought iron gates of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Holocaust’s most infamous concentration camp. Today the camp is a museum, and there is an eerie dissonance between the tranquility of its sprawling grounds and the mass murders that were carried out here almost 70 years ago. Like many visitors to Auschwitz, I experienced powerful emotions-a mixture of revulsion, anger, and a deep empathy for the millions of souls who suffered and perished there. I also felt a discomfiting sense of doubt about the goodness of humanity, including my own.
Read More
Mortality With Antipsychotic Use in Alzheimer Disease
June 11th 2009Mortality in elderly patients with dementia markedly and progressively increases with extended use of antipsychotics, according to the first long-term controlled study of risk in this population. Earlier evidence of this risk was from short-term trials not exceeding 14 weeks.
Read More
From this book’s title, iBrain, I expected to learn about the positive impact of the computer world on the ever-evolving brain. I was in for a surprise. iBrain is a nuanced account of brain anatomy and function, brain plasticity, the impact-good and bad-of the Internet and Web access on the brain, and how to have a healthy brain and life in the face of our technological world. The book is written by psychiatrist-neuroscientist Gary Small, MD, director of the Memory and Aging Research Center at UCLA, and his wife, Gigi Vorgan, a film and television actor and writer. Small and Vorgan have a linear, easy-to-understand writing style that includes entertaining and educational case vignettes.
Read More
A Physician’s Personal Experience-The Gift of Depression
May 27th 2009Depression is an insidious, ugly beast, creeping into the mind over time until one is engulfed and powerless, feeling only a sense of futility and heaviness. In my case it came some months after I had had to retire from a fruitful and enjoyable academic neurodevelopmental pediatrics practice, because of onset of a degenerative neuromuscular disease. My depression was manifested mainly by weight loss, poor affect, anger and irritability, fitful sleep, and thoughts of suicide. Luckily, my primary physician recognized the signs immediately and recommended both pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy. For both therapies and for this physician, I am extremely grateful. However, in this essay, I will speak of the ways I experienced psychodynamic psychotherapy and its ramifications into many parts of my life.
Read More
Several classes of hypnotic medication are available: the older barbiturates and their derivatives; benzodiazepines; chemically distinct “z-compounds”; antihistamines and antihistaminic antidepressants; and melatoninergic compounds. The use of hypnotic medications continues at a high rate. However, some switching to the shorter-acting benzodiazepines has occurred. The z-compounds-eszopiclone, zolpidem, and zaleplon-have become popular; they seem to have fewer residual effects than the benzodiazepines. Even so, care is needed in prescribing such hypnotics for the elderly.
Read More
Introduction: The Art of Psychopharmacology
May 11th 2009This Special Report presents an important set of articles that considers controversial issues relevant to the practice of psychiatry. These articles demonstrate that what we do as practitioners is often based on incomplete evidence and/or reliance on experience and the art of psychopharmacology. There are considerable limitations to “evidence-based medicine” as applied to the issues considered and also to what can be said officially about “off-label” uses of medications. All that said, these articles represent a very interesting set of perspectives on important and, to date, unresolved problems for which our science falls quite short of giving us definitive answers.
Read More
Mental Health in a Time of Financial Cholera
May 7th 2009The financial tsunami that has hit the United States and most of the rest of the globe is causing unparalleled misery for hundreds of millions. In America, millions of jobs have been lost, and it appears that millions more will be lost. In a nation where home ownership is a cherished expectation and goal, millions are losing their homes. The GNP is shrinking, the value of nearly all investments has plummeted, and the retirement plans of millions have been decimated.
Read More
Comorbidity: Psychiatric Comorbidity in Persons With Dementia
April 16th 2009The assessment and treatment of psychiatric symptoms in persons with cognitive dysfunction are becoming increasingly important. Prevalence estimates of dementia in the United States range from 5% in those aged 71 to 79 years to 25% to 50% in those 90 or older.
Read More
Cognitive Difficulties Associated With Depression What Are the Implications for Treatment?
March 11th 2009Subjective complaints of impaired concentration, memory, and attention are common in people with major depressive disorder (MDD), and research shows that a variety of structural brain abnormalities are associated with MDD.1 These findings have intensified the interest in quantitative assessment of cognitive and neuropsychological performance in patients with mood disorders. Many studies that used standardized cognitive tests have found that mild cognitive abnormalities are associated with MDD and that these abnormalities are more pronounced in persons who have MDD with melancholic or psychotic features
Read More
Mortality With Antipsychotic Use in Alzheimer Disease
March 4th 2009Mortality in elderly patients with dementia markedly and progressively increases with extended use of antipsychotics, according to the first long-term controlled study of risk in this population. Earlier evidence of this risk was from short-term trials not exceeding 14 weeks.
Read More
Eli Lilly and Company pleaded guilty on January 30 to one misdemeanor violation of misbranding Zyprexa (olanzapine) by promoting it for dementia. However, a question raised by bloggers and others remains: did the drug benefit the elderly despite the fact it was not approved by the FDA for such purposes?
Read More
Eli Lilly Settles Zyprexa Suit for $1.42 Billion
February 1st 2009In a resolution that has been expected since October 2008, pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly pled guilty to a criminal charge and has agreed to pay $1.42 billion in a settlement for what federal prosecutors called the illegal promotion of the antipsychotic drug Zyprexa (olanzapine). The drug was found to increase the risk of severe adverse effects, including sudden cardiac death, heart failure, and life-threatening infections, in certain populations.
Read More
Interrelationship of Micronutrients and Mental Health Remains Unclear
January 26th 2009Are serum concentrations of folate and vitamin B12 related to the onset of dementia? Can depression be prevented with folate, vitamin B12, and B6 supplementation? Two recent studies shed light on these questions.
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
Evaluating Capacity to Make a WillPsychological Autopsy and Assessment of Testamentary Capacity
December 2nd 2008It is an ancient practice to state instructions for distributing one’s property after death. In Genesis 48, Jacob verbally bequeaths his property to Joseph, Joseph’s siblings, and Joseph’s 2 sons. Wills existed in ancient Greece and Rome, with restrictions.
Read More
End-of-Life Care and the Elderly
December 1st 2008Every life ends with death. For the elderly, death is the end of a long life that has been shaped by personal history and world events, various relationships, well-set personality characteristics and, of course, happenstance. Each of these, in addition to the specific circumstances that herald death, shapes the experience of dying in old age.
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
Bone Mass Density Loss and Antidepressants: Another Tough Break for SSRI Users?
October 1st 2008When I was recently asked by a patient about the link between osteoporosis and SSRIs, I dimly recalled this topic’s emergence in a medical journal in 2007, its subsequent meander through several newsletters, and its gradual return to the bottom of my mental risk-assessment checklist.
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
The Dementias: Neuropsychiatric Syndromes of the 21st Century
October 1st 2008In the new century, the dementias will probably become 1 of the 2 or 3 dominant behavioral health problems in the United States. This article provides an overview of the major clinical features of these cognitive loss syndromes and emphasizes the perspective of the practicing psychiatrist.
Read More
Antipsychotics in Dementia: Evidence of Risk Mounts
October 1st 2008The use of antipsychotics to quiet agitated older adults with dementia has come under increasing fire. After a Canadian study demonstrated an increased risk of adverse events or death with these agents,1 the FDA expanded its earlier warning to physicians.
Read More