Clinical Psychiatry News articles from July 2006

Clinical Psychiatry News archives from July 2006

Pathology is rule for youth offenders.
July 1, 2006... MIAMI BEACH -- Data on the prevalence of mental and substance-related disorders among youth in juvenile justice systems--such as those who are on probation, involved in juvenile/family court, on detention, or in juvenile correctional facilities...

Percentage of international medical graduates in psychiatry.(VITAL SIGNS)
July 1, 2006... Percentage of International Medical Graduates in Psychiatry Source: American Medical Association ELSEVIER GLOBAL MEDICAL NEWS

AMA takes 'bold shift' on health insurance stance: delegates back individual accountability.(American Medical Association)
July 1, 2006... CHICAGO -- Individual health insurance mandates, direct-to-consumer advertising, and store-based health clinics topped the list of issues addressed at the annual meeting of the American Medical Association's House of Delegates. AMA...

CATIE support of atypical antipsychotics debated.(Clinical Antipsychotic Trials of Intervention Effectiveness )(Drug overview)
July 1, 2006... TORONTO -- The trial that was supposed to provide definitive guidance on which atypical antipsychotic or antipsychotics work best in schizophrenia apparently has not. The months after the publication of the first-phase results from the...

Bupropion wins approval for SAD.(seasonal affective disorder)
July 1, 2006... Extended-release bupropion is the first drug to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration for patients with seasonal affective disorder. The FDA approved the antidepressant last month for preventing major depressive episodes in...

Antidepressant use, diabetes link is found.
July 1, 2006... WASHINGTON -- Frequent antidepressant use may be associated with the development of type 2 diabetes, according to a posthoc sub-analysis of patients in the randomized Diabetes Prevention Program trial. This subanalysis is the first reported...

Drug companies' influence in psychiatry pervasive, experts say.
July 1, 2006... TORONTO -- Psychiatrists should be very concerned about the influence pharmaceutical companies wield in their field, and in medicine as a whole, two psychiatrists said in presentations at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric...

Radio psychiatry.
July 1, 2006... Many of our patients put stock in call-in radio shows featuring mental health professionals who help callers talk through their problems. Is any kind of meaningful treatment possible in such forums? Do these shows have any value for patients?...

'Weak' ties matter to our patients.
July 1, 2006... Hurricane Katrina, the war in Iraq, and the Southeast Asian tsunami are disasters that are likely to have immense consequences--for all of us--if we do not have a plan for the recovery efforts. We cannot plan properly if we fail to understand...

Pay-for-performance puppets.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2006... Thank you for the stinging analysis and indictment of the pay-for-performance travesty ("The Perils of Pay for Performance," Guest Editorial, May 2006, p. 15). We physicians are fast becoming performing monkeys and puppets paid a...

Autonomy, family, and the right to die.(Disease/Disorder overview)
July 1, 2006... Debates about assisted suicide, euthanasia, and the right to die are now commonplace worldwide, so it's no surprise that feature films have begun to address these thorny issues. Perhaps the best to date is the Spanish film, "The Sea Inside," a...

Antidepressant benefit may be apparent sooner.
July 1, 2006... TORONTO -- Most clinical recommendations advise that patients who start an antidepressant be given 4-6 weeks to see whether they respond and have improvement. But an analysis of more than 5,000 patients treated in clinical trials with a...

Social anxiety diminishes positive experiences: researchers also find more suppression of emotion among participants with social anxiety.(Disease/Disorder overview)
July 1, 2006... MIAMI -- Socially anxious people report fewer positive experiences and greater suppression of emotion than their nonanxious counterparts do, Todd B. Kashdan, Ph.D., reported at the annual conference of the Anxiety Disorders Association of...

Power of DBT is in the therapy, trial finds.(Dialectical behavior therapy)(Disease/Disorder overview)
July 1, 2006... SEATTLE -- For years, skeptics have questioned whether dialectical behavior therapy demonstrates such strong efficacy for borderline personality disorder in randomized trials because of the unique strengths of the therapy or merely because of a...

Novartis advises of changes to Clozaril label.(Adult Psychiatry)
July 1, 2006... Novartis has notified health care professionals about revisions to several sections of the Clozaril (clozapine) prescribing information. The company has revised the boxed warning, warnings, contraindications, precautions, and adverse...

HIV/AIDS deaths on the rise.(Human Immunodeficiency Virus)(Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome)(study on mortality rates)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... The number of deaths worldwide resulting from HIV/AIDS rose from 2% in 1990 to 14% in 2001, according to 2001 Global Burden of Disease study data on mortality and cause of death for 192 countries. Worldwide, more than 56 million people died...

Heroin use drops in Switzerland.(statistical data)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... Heroin use in Zurich and, by extrapolation, in all of Switzerland, appears to have dropped by 82% since its peak in 1990, reported Carlos Nordt, Ph.D., and Dr. Rudolf Stohler of Psychiatric University Hospital, Zurich. The researchers...

Check Diastat applicator before use.(Drug overview)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... The Food and Drug Administration advises patients with epilepsy and their caregivers to check the applicator tips of Diastat AcuDial (diazepam rectal gel) delivery systems for cracks that may result in patients not receiving enough medication...

Perimenopause complicates treatment.
July 1, 2006... The perimenopause, or menopausal transition, is a difficult time often marked by physical discomfort, insomnia, and dysphoria. It is a time of heightened psychiatric risk as well. An increase in the risk of depression and depressive...

Screen for depression in women complaining of hot flashes.(PRACTICAL PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY)
July 1, 2006... TUCSON, ARIZ. -- When a female patient presents with hot flashes, consider screening her for depression, Dr. Marlene Freeman advised at a psychopharmacology conference sponsored by the University of Arizona. The risk of depression is known...

The art of Carolyn S. Gabb.(Disease/Disorder overview)
July 1, 2006... Carolyn S. Gabb's "Woman in the Box" series of ceramics stems from a dream of a woman who was struggling to come out of--you guessed it--a box. "She was in a fetal position in the box," said Dr. Gabb, who holds an Ed.D. in language...

Therapy linked to autism recovery.(Disease/Disorder overview)
July 1, 2006... BALTIMORE -- Growing evidence suggests that a small minority of children with autistic spectrum disorder can recover from the condition to near-normal levels with only mild residual deficits, Deborah Fein, Ph.D., said at a meeting on...

Comorbidities are common in autistic children.
July 1, 2006... SAN FRANCISCO -- Data from a large national survey document very high levels of comorbidity among children with autism, James G. Gurney, Ph.D., reported at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies. Compared with children aged...

Mother's depression affects child's Mental State.
July 1, 2006... When a mother's depression remits, her child's clinical state also improves, and children of mothers who remain depressed are likely to deteriorate, reported Myrna M. Weissman, Ph.D., and her associates in the pediatric portion of the Sequenced...

Paxil fails to improve children's MDD.(major depressive disorder )(Drug overview)
July 1, 2006... Paroxetine was no more effective than a placebo in reducing the symptoms of major depressive disorder in a population that, for the first time, included patients younger than 12 years, reported Dr. Graham J. Emslie of the University of Texas,...

Predicting recurrent abdominal pain.(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... When a child presents with recurrent abdominal pain, parents' anxiety may be a factor, reported Dr. Paul G. Ramchandani of the University of Oxford (U.K.) and his associates. Recurrent abdominal pain (RAP)--defined as pain five or more...

Family stress high in ADHD.(Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder )(Disease/Disorder overview)
July 1, 2006... The results of a large national survey indicate that families of children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder show very high levels of stress, compared with families of children with other special health care needs, according to a...

Seizures may present as subtle cognitive changes.
July 1, 2006... SAN DIEGO -- Seizures in elderly patients may present as subtle changes or unexplained fluctuations in cognitive abilities, results from a small study demonstrated. The finding suggests that physicians "need to consider subtle or...

Jelly beats water for swallowing pills, study finds.(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. -- Using jelly, applesauce, or another semisolid chaser instead of water is a better way to have patients swallow pills or tablets, particularly in patients with dysphagia. Pills swallowed with water tend to get stuck in...

Donepezil makes difference in severe Alzheimer's.(reports of clinical trials)
July 1, 2006... CHICAGO -- Patients with severe Alzheimer's disease showed improved cognition and function when treated with donepezil in a 24-week, placebo-controlled trial, Dr. Sandra Black and her associates reported in a poster at the annual meeting of the...

Dementia, depression common in assisted living.(Disease/Disorder overview)
July 1, 2006... SAN JUAN, P.R. -- Dementia and depression appear to be quite common among residents in assisted living facilities, based on two analyses of facilities in Maryland that were presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for...

Testosterone doesn't significantly improve cognition, study finds.
July 1, 2006... CHICAGO -- Exogenous testosterone, taken either alone or with finasteride for 36 months, did not significantly improve cognition in a randomized, placebo-controlled trial involving healthy older men. The findings do little to settle the...

Rivastigmine backed for Parkinson's dementia.(Geriatric Psychiatry)
July 1, 2006... GAITHERSBURG, MD. -- The cholinesterase inhibitor rivastigmine is likely to be approved for a second indication: the treatment of mild to moderate dementia associated with Parkinson's disease, based on a study that found treatment was...

Poor physical function may precede dementia onset.(Disease/Disorder overview)
July 1, 2006... Older people with poor physical function are at higher risk for developing dementia than those with good physical function, reported Li Wang of the Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System, Seattle, and her associates. In a study of...

More physicians needed to meet challenges of aging population.(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... The number of new geriatricians in the United States is declining, even as the over-65 population grows rapidly, according to a report from the Center for Health Workforce Studies at the University at Albany, part of the State University of New...

Pharmacotherapy urged for 'hard-core' smokers.
July 1, 2006... SAN DIEGO -- Physicians who have a patient who smokes need to do more than just advise them to quit. Most smokers need much more help than that, Dr. Linda Hyder Ferry said at the annual conference of the American Society of Addiction Medicine....

Smoking quit rates go up with age.(table)(Table)
July 1, 2006... Smoking Quit Rates Go Up With Age Age (in years) 18-24 23% 25-44 36% 45-64 56% [greater than or equal to]65 82% Source: American Lung Association, based...

Programs attempt to treat the trauma that underlies addiction.(care and treatment)
July 1, 2006... COLORADO SPRINGS -- Trauma therapy should be an integral part of substance abuse recovery programs, because trauma is at the root of most addictions, Dolores J. Walker said at a symposium on addictive disorders sponsored by Psychotherapy...

Strategies can improve treatment adherence: if alcohol abusers don't improve, they may need to be reeducated about their medications.(drug use)(Statistical data)
July 1, 2006... SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. -- Sometimes an alcohol abuser prescribed a medication such as disulfiram, acamprosate, or naltrexone has no improvement in their drinking behavior. Sometimes the reason is that the patient has not been adherent to the...

Treating depression can curb drinking in alcoholic patients.(care and treatment)
July 1, 2006... SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. -- Most physicians who treat alcohol-dependent patients know that studies have shown that depressed patients are much less likely to quit, or reduce, their drinking. It is less well known that treating depression in these...

Methamphetamine use during a 12-month period.(survey)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... Methamphetamine Use During a 12-Month Period Note: Based on a study of 203,670 persons aged 12 years or older during 2002-2004. Source: U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration JULIE KELLER/ELSEVIER GLOBAL...

Extended-release naltrexone shows rapid onset: pharmacokinetic data show that peak plasma concentration is reached on day 3 after injection.(care and treatment)
July 1, 2006... SAN DIEGO -- The new long-acting, injectable formulation of naltrexone takes effect rapidly and probably does not need to be combined with an oral dose to prevent alcohol-dependent patients from early hazardous drinking, according to a company...

For older women, prenatal alcohol use affects children's growth.(side effects)
July 1, 2006... SANTA BARBARA, CALIF. -- The children of older mothers who drank during pregnancy were shorter and had smaller head circumferences at the ages of 7 and 14 years than other children at those ages, it was reported at the annual meeting of the...

Don't withhold opioids from recovering addicts.(treatment methods)
July 1, 2006... SAN DIEGO -- Pain patients with a history of substance abuse who are otherwise appropriate candidates for opioid medications should receive the same consideration from their physicians as patients without the disease of addiction, Dr. Howard A....

Experts still railing against buprenorphine limits: American Society of Addiction Medicine says law makes no sense and 'constitutes rationing of care.'.(Addiction Psychiatry)
July 1, 2006... SAN DIEGO -- Despite the recent potential easing of the federal limit on the number of opiate-addicted patients a physician can treat, substance abuse experts continue to see a pressing need for more buprenorphine slots. At a recent...

Buprenorphine switch improves detox.(drug use)
July 1, 2006... SAN DIEGO -- The switch from the use of intramuscular buprenorphine to sublingual buprenorphine probably has improved the completion rate of short-term, inpatient opiate detoxification, according to the experience at the Center for Chemical...

Panic attack/alcohol use association greater in men.(care and treatment)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... MIAMI -- Higher self-reported alcohol consumption among men with panic attacks carries important implications for patient screening, according to a poster presentation at the annual conference of the Anxiety Disorders Association of America....

Perspective.(Community Psychiatry)
July 1, 2006... As the principal investigator of a sexual risk reduction intervention funded by the National Institute of Mental Health for 10- to 13-year-olds in Durban, South Africa, I have experienced firsthand a lesson from Stephen Covey's "The Seven...

Teens' sexual risk taking: early intervention a must.
July 1, 2006... Sexually risky behaviors on the part of adolescents is nothing new, but the age at which these behaviors begin is. In fact, new data suggest that sexual risk taking often begins in middle school. Baseline data collected in spring 2005 from...

Lithium: the unsung antisuicidal agent.
July 1, 2006... SEATTLE -- Lithium is vastly underappreciated as a suicidality-reducing agent, Dr. Mark W. Viner asserted at the annual conference of the American Association of Suicidology. Lithium is supported by far and away the strongest evidence of...

Suicidal behavior needs long-term follow-up.(research)(Statistical data)
July 1, 2006... SEATTLE -- Suicide attempt behavior is best viewed in most instances as a chronic condition embedded in long-term psychiatric illness and lifestyle problems, Annette L. Beautrais, Ph.D., asserted in her Edwin S. Shneidman Award lecture at the...

Suicide rates in decline, but suffocation deaths on the rise.(Community Psychiatry)
July 1, 2006... SEATTLE -- Suicide rates in general have been steadily decreasing over the past 2 decades. But a new investigation conducted by the Harvard Injury Control Research Center shows that suicide via suffocation has actually increased, Catherine...

Data show that DBT reduces suicidal behavior.(research)(Dialectical behavior therapy )
July 1, 2006... SEATTLE -- Dialectical behavior therapy possesses far and away the strongest evidence base of any treatment aimed at reducing suicidal behavior, Marsha M. Linehan, Ph.D., said at the annual conference of the American Association of Suicidology....

Experts finding objections to no-suicide patient contracts.(patient-physician contracts)
July 1, 2006... SEATTLE -- Experts on suicide are increasingly turning thumbs-down on the use of no-suicide contracts, David A. Jobes, Ph.D., said at the annual conference of the American Association of Suicidology. These widely used contracts, also called...

Long-term interventions can reduce repeat suicide attempts.(care and treatment)
July 1, 2006... SEATTLE -- Promising examples of how long-term continuity of care for suicide attempters can reduce future suicidal behavior range from comprehensive, multidisciplinary networks for follow-up care to a simple series of mailed postcards, Annette...

Keep an open mind about CAM for Parkinson's.(complementary and alternative medicine )(care and treatment)
July 1, 2006... WASHINGTON -- Many patients with Parkinson's disease turn to complementary and alternative medicine therapies for the relief of symptoms. Keeping an open mind can help these patients get nontraditional treatments that actually may help them and...

Antidepressants appear to bolster executive function after stroke.(drug use)
July 1, 2006... SAN DIEGO -- Treatment with antidepressants improved executive function in patients who had a recent stroke, results from a 2-year study of 47 patients demonstrated. The finding suggests that "modulation of the monoaminergic...

Estimated costs of stroke for 2006.(table)(Table)
July 1, 2006... Estimated Costs of Stroke for 2006 (in billions) Direct Costs Hospital $15.5 Nursing home $14.3 Physicians/other professionals $3.1 Home health care $3.1...

Stress can alter brain, lead to psychopathology.(risk factors)
July 1, 2006... SAN JUAN, P.R. -- Stress can cause structural remodeling of the brain that can have short-term advantages, but if left unchecked, the changes can contribute to psychopathology, according to a presentation by a neuroendocrinologist at the annual...

Chronic tics did not worsen for patients on levodopa.(care and treatment)(Statistical data)
July 1, 2006... LA JOLLA, CALIF. -- Children and adults with chronic tic disorders who were treated with levodopa did not experience a worsening of tics, Dr. Mollie Gordon reported during a poster session at the annual meeting of the American Neuropsychiatric...

Suicide risks higher after DBS among Parkinson's patients.(deep brain stimulation)
July 1, 2006... SAN DIEGO -- Parkinson's disease patients who have undergone subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation have higher rates of completed and attempted suicide than do others with the disease, Dr. Valerie Voon reported at the annual meeting of the...

Tysabri is again available--with conditions.(product introduction)
July 1, 2006... Tysabri, the monoclonal antibody withdrawn from the market in February last year after progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy was diagnosed in three patients receiving the drug in clinical trials, will be made available again for patients...

Cognition impaired in 30% with ALS: a small study of patients with classic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis found cognitive impairment in 30% of the patients and dementia in 23%.(amyotrophic lateral sclerosis )
July 1, 2006... Cognitive impairment was found in 30% of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in a study designed to assess the prevalence of cognitive involvement in what used to be considered a disease restricted to the motor system, according to Dr....

History may offer clues in neuropsychiatric lupus.
July 1, 2006... GLASGOW -- When acute nonspecific symptoms might represent neuropsychiatric lupus, it is necessary to carefully review a patient's past medical history, because the presenting symptoms of systemic lupus erythematosus are manifold, may mimic...

Uses of some opiates limited in HIV patients.(drug use)(Human Immunodeficiency Virus)
July 1, 2006... SAN FRANCISCO -- Opiates are often the best choice when treating pain in patients with HIV, but some of the available drugs can have limitations, Dr. Robert V. Brody said at a meeting on HIV management sponsored by the University of California,...

Use of intranasal lidocaine may relieve migraine.(care and treatment )(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, CALIF. -- The next time you see a patient with a migraine headache, you might want to try intranasal lidocaine, Dr. John Richards said at an emergency medicine conference sponsored by the University of California, Davis. ...

MRI captures differences in pain perception: statistically significant differences in brain activity found beyond the thalamus but not within it.(Magnetic resonance imaging)
July 1, 2006... BETHESDA, MD. -- Pain perception, far from being the simple one-directional process first proposed by Descartes in 1664, appears to be modulated by several psychological, genetic, and other factors specific to the individual experiencing it,...

Pain specialists: urged to resist profiteering.(pain medicine)
July 1, 2006... SAN DIEGO -- Challenges such as declining reimbursements and limitations on payor approval of prescribed therapies are creating fertile ground for conflict of interest and profiteering by physicians, Dr. Jerome Schofferman said at the annual...

Caregiver stress may predict skin and allergic disorders in children.(care and treatment)
July 1, 2006... NEW YORK -- Compelling research supports the link between psychological stress and specific skin and allergic disorders, Dr. Rosalind J. Wright said at a dermatology symposium sponsored by Cornell University. "There is huge biological...

Insomnia appears to be a risk factor for anxiety and other psychiatric disorders.(care and treatment)
July 1, 2006... MIAMI -- People with anxiety often present with insomnia, but evidence suggests that untreated insomnia might precipitate anxiety disorders, according to a presentation at the annual conference of the Anxiety Disorders Association of America....

Stress affects clearing of psoriasis.(care and treatment)(Statistical data)
July 1, 2006... NEW YORK -- There is mounting evidence that stress and the way in which patients with psoriasis view themselves or perceive themselves to be seen affects the way that they respond to treatment, Dr. Christopher Griffiths said at a dermatology...

Stress, depression may speed breast ca progression: combination may dysregulate the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and lead to more stress.(risk factors)(Statistical data)
July 1, 2006... SAN JUAN, P.R. -- Women who experience stressful life events, especially trauma, together with depression have a shorter time to breast cancer progression than women with no such history, Dr. David Spiegel said at the annual meeting of the...

Optimism tied to lower CVD mortality in white men.(Cardiovascular disease )
July 1, 2006... Older white men who have an optimistic nature have about half the risk of dying from cardiovascular causes as their less optimistic peers, according to Dr. Erik J. Giltay of the Institute of Mental Health, Delft, the Netherlands, and his...

Herbal, nutritional therapies can play supportive role in practice.
July 1, 2006... TUCSON, ARIZ. -- Complementary herbal and nutritional therapies can play an important role in an integrated psychiatric practice, Dr. Iris R. Bell said at a psychopharmacology conference sponsored by the University of Arizona. Disputes...

Unraveling the mind/gut puzzle.
July 1, 2006... A few years ago, an accountant was referred to me by his internist. The accountant's chief complaint was that he had daily episodes of feeling bloated. When he wasn't bloated, he had an urge to defecate. When I saw the patient, he was so...

Post-MI depression severity appears to stabilize after 6 months.(Myocardial Infarction )(Disease/Disorder overview)
July 1, 2006... DENVER -- Depression that occurred in adults after acute myocardial infarction decreased in severity during the first 6 months after the cardiac event, but then stabilized over the next several years, Kenneth E. Freedland, Ph.D., reported in a...

Benefits of multivitamins unclear, panel finds: members call for legislation that would expand the FDA's role in addressing oversight of multivitamins.(Disease/Disorder overview)
July 1, 2006... BETHESDA, MD. -- Evidence of the effectiveness and safety of multivitamin and mineral supplements to prevent chronic diseases is too sparse and ambiguous to recommend for or against their use, according to a panel of experts at a conference on...

Obesity appears to be a stronger asthma risk factor in women.(Disease/Disorder overview)
July 1, 2006... KEYSTONE, COLO. -- Obesity appears to be modestly associated with subsequent development of asthma, particularly in women, Dr. David A. Beuther reported at a meeting sponsored by the National Jewish Medical and Research Center. His...

Biases, mimicking disorders confound child abuse dx.
July 1, 2006... OLD GREENWICH, CONN. -- Child abuse remains one of the most misdiagnosed problems in all of pediatrics, Dr. Cindy Christian said at a meeting of the Eastern Society for Pediatric Research. On one hand, a lack of awareness of their own...

Screen for intimate partner abuse in ped emergency visits.
July 1, 2006... CHICAGO -- Screening for intimate partner violence among parents who bring their children into the emergency department is an active form of child abuse protection, Dr. Jane F. Knapp said at a meeting sponsored by the American College of...

SAMHSA director resigns.(Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... Charles G. Curie, administrator of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, is resigning effective Aug. 5. In his resignation letter to President Bush, Mr. Curie lauded the president's leadership in the New Freedom...

New inpatient rule.(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... A new Medicare rule for recertification for psychiatric inpatients went into effect this month, but it's not expected to have a major effect on psychiatrists. The rule requires that psychiatrists recertify psychiatric inpatients on the 12th day...

New detox protocol released.(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... SAMHSA has released a new treatment improvement protocol (TIP 45) for detoxification and substance abuse treatment. This TIP, a revision of one published in 1995, stresses that detoxification by itself does not constitute complete substance...

Licensure for drug sales reps?(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... A proposal making its way through the Massachusetts legislature would require that pharmaceutical company sales representatives be licensed by the state, and complete continuing education programs to renew that license. The proposal passed as...