Harvard Mental Health Letter articles from November 2004

Harvard Mental Health Letter archives from November 2004

Paranoia.
November 1, 2004... "... the patient imagines that everything happening around him is a veiled reference to his personality and existence. Clouds in the staring sky transmit to one another, by means of slow signs, incredibly detailed information regarding him. His...

Winter depression.
November 1, 2004... The treatment of seasonal affective disorder throws light on dark moods. Winter is coming, and some of us will be taking it hard. A sunny disposition is by definition a happy one, and a wintry atmosphere is cheerless. For 1 or 2 out of 100...

The persistent popularity of benzodiazepines.
November 1, 2004... Two new studies show that benzodiazepine anti-anxiety drugs -- diazepam (Valium), chlordiazepoxide (Librium), lorazepam (Ativan), and their cousins -- are still widely used to treat patients with panic disorder and depression, despite expert...

Reality testing for insomnia.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... It's understood among experts that insomnia is largely subjective. Studies usually show at most a little sleep loss in insomniac patients; the problem is not how little sleep they get but how little sleep they think they get. In a new...

In Brief; Alzheimer's drugs: Are they worth it?
November 1, 2004... Maybe not, if results reported recently in the British medical journal Lancet are correct. The medications most often used in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease are cholinesterase inhibitors, which prevent the breakdown of acetylcholine, a...

Questions & Answers.
November 1, 2004... Q. Does the new antidepressant duloxetine (Cymbalta) have any advantages over other antidepressant drugs? A. Duloxetine (Cymbalta) became available by prescription in the summer of 2004. Described as a selective serotonin and norepinephrine...