Schizophrenia/Psychosis

This week's news stories: intimate partner violence, gun control and mental illness, eating disorders, and more.

The Clinical Assessment Interview for Negative Symptoms (CAINS) is an effective tool in measuring negative symptoms in schizophrenia, according to a recent study.

It is clear that the prognosis for schizophrenia is much better when patients achieve drug abstinence, including in the domains of depression, quality of life, and community integration.

Emil Kraepelin diagnosed the paranoid, catatonic, and hebephrenic forms of dementia praecox, a disease he created.

Both positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia combined with those of a mood disorder led to a psychiatric diagnosis; later, a neurological diagnosis of anti–NMDA receptor autoimmune encephalitis was made.

A list of recent articles highlighting the complexity of psychiatric and systemic illness, both in terms of overlapping clinical presentation and in the degrees to which systemic illness and psychiatric illness affect each other.

Migraine, particularly chronic migraine, as well as other chronic headaches, have high rates of comorbidity with mood and anxiety disorders.

This article reviews the recent knowledge about glutamate in different psychiatric conditions based on research published in the past year.

Psychosis can arise from a general medical condition, including endocrine diseases, metabolic diseases, autoimmune diseases, infections, narcolepsy, seizures, space-occupying lesions, strokes, head injury, and more.

The number of medical diseases that can present with psychotic symptoms (ie, delusions, hallucinations) is legion. A thorough differential diagnosis of possible medical and toxic causes of psychosis is necessary to avoid the mistaken attribution of psychosis to a psychiatric disorder.

Pharmacological and nonpharmacological strategies to treat and manage comorbid schizophrenia and addiction concern psychiatrists who are learning strategies to help improve functional outcomes.

There has been substantial interest lately on the early stages of schizophrenia and the effects of untreated psychosis. Clinical trials have focused on medications for first episode, assessments of adverse effects, and “care paths” for the early/prodromal stage of psychosis.

A plethora of studies support the hypothesis that inflammation plays a role in the pathophysiology of major psychiatric disorders.

It would not be overstating matters to say that during his long career, Dr Thomas Szasz has been one of the most controversial figures in the psychiatric profession.

Disparate means of accessing marijuana complicates the evaluation of the quality, purity, and potency of cannabis.

Is the expression “mental illness” merely a metaphor? If so, does that tell us something about the persons we identify as having a mental illness? To clinicians who deal with devastating psychiatric disorders every day-and to those afflicted with these conditions-these questions may seem like a lot of semantic nonsense.

Do not be surprised if you hear more about hybrid models of psychiatric diagnoses included in DSM-5. The categorical and dimensional model approaches are 2 sides of the same coin as you look at the same patient from 2 different angles.

In this review, we discuss the established medications as well as experimental therapeutic options that may emerge as future medications for alcohol intoxication, withdrawal, and/or long-term abstinence maintenance or harm-reduced drinking.

Four studies sprang from the TORDIA trial on treatment-resistant depression in children and adolescents and showed that several factors influence treatment efficacy following treatment resistance.

Has any progress been made in our ability to manage negative symptoms of schizophrenia?

In schizophrenia therapy, the question arises whether a patient with hyper-religiosity as a main symptom can be treated with an antipsychotic (like clozapine) that targets that symptom.

In spite of a chronic mental illness (schizophrenia)and a psyche that increasingly blurred the boundaries between fantasy and reality, this lawyer and professor graduated from Vanderbilt with a perfect academic record.

What effect has the new antipsychotic Latuda had in patients with psychosis? Is a mood stabilizer as an adjunctive therapy necessary for schizophrenia or is the use of an antipsychotic alone sufficient?

With the recent tragedy in Colorado and the high likelihood that questions about psychiatry will be inextricably tied into it, guidance for practicing psychiatrists can be gleaned from this coincidence.

Anti-psychiatry proponents forget it is widely recognized that the DSM is a provisional diagnostic system pending progress in better understanding uniquely human disorders of our most complex organ.