April 29th 2024
Here are some updates from the world of psychiatry throughout the month of April.
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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New Practice Parameter for ADHD
October 1st 2007The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry recently published a practice parameter with evidence-based guidelines for the assessment and treatment of children and adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Recommendations for the best treatment practices were made based on empirical evidence and clinical consensus, and the strength of these recommendations was based on the extent and degree of these variables. This column will provide a summary of the parameter.
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The Complex Issue of Attachment Disorders
October 1st 2007Attachment may be defined as a composite of behaviors in an infant, toddler, or young child that is designed to achieve physical and emotional closeness to a mother or preferred caregiver when the child seeks comfort, support, nurturance, or protection.
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Clinical Depression: Complexities of Diagnosis and Management
September 15th 2007Major depression is at once simple and complex. At one level, the treatment of this disorder is straightforward. Yet, at a multitude of other levels, it is a complex condition for which available treatments remain suboptimal.
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Placebo Effects on Pharmacotherapy Outcomes in Major Depression
September 15th 2007If clinical trials data are any indication, the potential impact of placebo treatment on depression outcomes may be potent. Placebo response rates in clinical trials for depression average approximately 30%, with a top range beyond 50%-and the trend is upward.
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Never-Ending Winter: Chronic Depression
September 15th 2007Mood disorders are among the most prevalent forms of mental illness. Serious depression is especially common; based on a face-to-face survey conducted from December 2001 to December 2002, the past-year prevalence rate of clinically significant major depressive disorder (MDD) was estimated to be 6.6%, affecting at least 13.1 to 14.2 million Americans.
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SSRIs and Pregnancy: Putting the Risks Into Perspective
September 15th 2007Mood disorders are common in women and typically emerge during the childbearing years. While pregnancy has traditionally been considered a time of emotional well- being, recent data indicate that about 10% to 15% of women experience clinically significant depressive symptoms during pregnancy.
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Can We Predict Response to Antidepressants?
September 15th 2007In this article, we use the example of major depressive disorder (MDD) to review research efforts to identify predictors of treatment response, both to antidepressant medications and to psychotherapy. We describe the promises and limitations of this research, with some emphasis on brain imaging studies, and then discuss how this work may be integrated into clinical practice in the future.
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Not Obsolete: Continuing Roles for TCAs and MAOIs
September 15th 2007In lecturing to medical students, residents, and psychiatrists during the past several years, we have encountered widespread hesitancy in the use of MAOIs and even TCAs, mainly because of concerns about their safety but also because of doubts about their effectiveness compared with newer alternatives. Thus, it is timely to review the literature on the efficacy and safety of TCAs and MAOIs, with a view to maintaining an appropriate place for these 2 drug classes in the pharmacotherapy of depression.
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Adherence to Treatment Regimens in Major Depression: Perspectives, Problems, and Progress
September 15th 2007Adherence, in a medical context, refers to the degree to which a patient follows the treatment plan that has been agreed on between the prescriber (usually, but not always, a physician) and the patient.
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Cognitive Therapy: What Is Its Role in Depression Treatment?
September 15th 2007Although cognitive therapy (CT) is the best-studied form of psychotherapy, its effectivenes compared with antidepressant medication remains controversial. Over the years, there has been some variability in the results of randomized controlled trials and other types of clinical trials, as well as meta-analyses.
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Complementary Therapies for Schizophrenia: Expanding the Clinician’s Toolbox
September 9th 2007Given the burdens of living with schizophrenia, and the increasing focus on patients' quality of life, it’s no wonder clinicians are seeking other treatment options for the disorder. Here, a discussion of the most promising nonconventional therapies and how to use them.
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Exploring OCD Subtypes and Treatment Resistance
September 1st 2007Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a heterogeneous disorder with a variety of phenotypic expressions. Delineation of clinically distinct subtypes of the disorder may be valuable in predicting treatment response and resistance.
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Positive Psychology: A More Direct Route to Happiness?
September 1st 2007Like medicine in general, psychiatry and psychotherapy have long focused on relieving illness and pain. Traditional psychotherapeutic approaches have often emphasized examination and understanding of painful experiences as a route toward obtaining relief from suffering.
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Toward an Improved Nosology of Sexual Dysfunctions in DSM-V
August 1st 2007Sexual dysfunctions as distinct syndromes were first identified in DSM-III in 1980. At that time, sets of criteria were specified for inhibited sexual desire, inhibited sexual excitement, inhibited female orgasm, inhibited male orgasm, premature ejaculation, dyspareunia, and functional vaginismus.
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Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder: An Update on Diagnosis and Treatment
August 1st 2007Premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) is a distinct cyclical disorder in which women experience distressed mood and behavioral symptoms in the late luteal or premenstrual phase of their menstrual cycle. PMDD is the most extreme or severe form of premenstrual syndrome (PMS).
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Options for Management of Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor-Induced Sexual Dysfunction
August 1st 2007Among 25 to 30 million Americans in whom depression is diagnosed annually, 18 to 25 million are treated with antidepressants, of which 90% are SSRI or non-selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SRI) antidepressants, the most frequently prescribed medications for all outpatients aged 18 to 65 years.
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Suicide in Depression: Balancing Risk Factors, Identifying Vulnerable Patients
August 1st 2007This May, the FDA called for a black box warning on antidepressants to indicate that patients aged 18 to 24 years are at heightened risk for treatment-emergent suicidality. But a member of the FDA advisory committee that recommended that warning has issued his own warning, saying that the "real killer in this story is untreated depression and the possible risk from antidepressant treatment is dwarfed by that from the disease."
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Postpartum Depression Bill Likely to Move Forward
July 1st 2007Democratic control of Congress may result in the dislodging of a long-stuck bill authorizing an unspecified amount of additional federal funding for research into postpartum depression. But in hearings in a House subcommittee recently, Republicans voiced an intention to add postabortion depression to the bill's focus.
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Mental Health Courts Reduce Incarceration, Save Money
July 1st 2007Figures from the US Department of Justice indicate that more than half of prison and jail inmates have a mental health problem. Mental health courts (MHCs) were designed to divert mentally ill persons convicted of nonviolent crimes to supervised treatment instead of incarceration, but while the number of MHCs has grown substantially over the past decade, limited information has been available about outcomes and costs.
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Depression With Coronary Disease: Therapy Adds No Benefit to SSRI
June 1st 2007In what was billed as the first randomized controlled study to simultaneously evaluate antidepressant therapy and short-term psychotherapy for depressed patients with coronary artery disease (CAD), treatment with an SSRI led to significant improvement, while addition of interpersonal psychotherapy provided no added benefit.
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Integrating Psychosocial Treatment for PTSD and Severe Mental Illness
June 1st 2007Patients with severe mental illness (SMI), such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression, are more likely to have experienced trauma in childhood, adolescence, and throughout their adult lives than the general population. This high exposure to traumatic events such as physical and sexual abuse and assault takes a heavy toll.
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Trauma and the Mind-Body Connection
June 1st 2007Traumatic experiences are linked with a continuum of mental disorders and physical complaints. In the United States, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) occurs in approximately 8% of adults during their lifetime, with different trauma types associated with varying rates of illness. PTSD is commonly associated with comorbid mental conditions such as depressive disorders, other anxiety disorders, impulse control disorders, and alcohol abuse.
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Rape-Related PTSD: Issues and Interventions
June 1st 2007Rape is a crime that is defined as an unwanted sexual act that results in oral, vaginal, or anal penetration. Generally speaking, there are 2 major types of rape. Forcible rape involves unwanted sexual penetration obtained by the use of force or threat of force. Drug- or alcohol-facilitated rape occurs when the victim is passed out or highly intoxicated because of voluntary or involuntary consumption of alcohol or drugs. Rape can happen to boys and men as well as to girls and women but this article will focus primarily on women.
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Posttraumatic Stress in Medically Ill Patients
June 1st 2007A major physical illness or procedure, such as a myocardial infarction (MI), a transplant operation, or a life-threatening attack of asthma, can be emotionally traumatic,1,2 but the study of posttraumatic reactions in the medically ill is relatively new. Only in the past 2 decades or so it has been recognized that, in fact, medical illness and its treatment can be traumatic, and only since the publication of DSM-IV in 1994 has medical illness been included as a potentially traumatic event that may lead to the development of posttraumatic symptoms.
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