psychiatry
omnibrain | May 23, 2007Ok... not really at home (Are they really suggesting in the picture that you can do it yourself?). There are now some relatively simple consumer devices on the market that will let your Psychiatrist wave his magic wand over your head, helping to alleviate your depressive symptoms in his office without checking you into a hospital and knocking you out. I'm curious whether they need an MRI before doing this procedure? It doesn't look like it's too precise. In any case... here's the device:
And a description from Engadget:
The devices employ a technique known as transcranial magnetic…
j7uy5 | May 23, 2007This
is in response to a
href="http://scienceblogs.com/corpuscallosum/2007/05/childhood_ptsd.php#comment-439606">comment
from a prior post. There are a few related questions here.
Can preemies develop PTSD, can
they be labeled with PTSD, if they can get PTSD is it fundamentally the
same as it is in adults, and if it is different, should we call it
something else????
The comment was left by Stacy, the author of a blog,
href="http://thepreemieexperiment.blogspot.com/">The Preemie
Experiment. I spent a bit of time on
href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi">Medline…
j7uy5 | May 21, 2007
One of the things that most consistently surprised me, when I was doing
the consultation-liaison rotation in residency, was how common delirium
was, and how frequently it was missed by the medical team.
Even since then, it has evolved into a pet peeve of mine. The
brain is a rather important organ, and when it shows acute signs of
dysfunction, you'd think doctors would notice and pay attention.
All too often, they do not.
Why is this so important?
A recent paper in the BMJ indicates:
Delayed
or missed diagnosis is an important issue — non-detection of
delirium in emergency…
omnibrain | May 14, 2007There's a humorous post over at Shrink Rap about using patients online communication style (specifically emoticons) to determine what treatment plan to follow. Here is a partial list:
:-)stable. cont prozac 40mg. f/u 3 mos.
:-))reduce prozac to 20mg. f/u 1mo.
:-))))d/c prozac. add lithium 300 tid. check TSH, creat. f/u 1wk.
:-Dadd depakote. check lithium level, LFTs, CBC. f/u 1wk.
:-|stable. cont prozac 40 mg. f/u 1mo.
:-(increase prozac to 60mg. f/u 2wk.
:'-(add wellbutrin SR 150mg. f/u 1wk.
X-(call 911. send to ER. check for OD.
Head over to Shrink Rap for the rest!
j7uy5 | May 14, 2007
face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Domestic violence and
other forms of childhood trauma are all too common. The
effects of trauma on children have been studied in a variety of ways,
but much of this research has not employed strict diagnostic criteria.
Now, the Archives of General Psychiatry
has published an article that addresses this. It is
subscription-only, but there is a
href="http://www.medpagetoday.com/Psychiatry/Depression/tb/5602">good
summary of it on MedPage Today,
so nonspecialists don't really need access to the full article.
face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif…
j7uy5 | May 12, 2007For
anyone who is interested, Medscape has a nice, concise
href="http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/554128">summary
article about medication treatment options for bipolar
disorder. They focus on the atypical antipsychotics, but
cover the mood stabilizers, too.
width="500">
Generic Name
Trade Name
Manic
Mixed
Maint.
Depr.
Valproate
Depakote
X
Carbamazepine extended release
Equestro
X
X
Lamotrigine
Lamictal
X
Lithium
X
X
Aripiprazole
Abilify
X
X
X
Ziprasidone
Geodon
X
X
Risperidone
Risperdal
X
X
Quetiapine
Seroquel
X
X…
j7uy5 | May 6, 2007(Note: if the accent marks look weird, set your browser to view character encoding as Unicode (UTF-8))
One
of the problems with the
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagnostic_and_Statistical_Manual_of_Mental_Disorders">Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is that there is
no clear rationale for the division of problems into Axis I vs. Axis II
disorders. It is assumed, sometimes, that Axis I disorders
are "biological" and Axis II disorders are "psychological."
Legend has it that the division arose directly from the conflict
between psychodynamically-oriented…
j7uy5 | May 4, 2007The
work of Li-Huei
Tsai on the partial restoration of memory was in the news a
few days ago. Although the experiments were done on mice, it
was hoped that the results could indicate a reason to hope that humans
with dementia could be helped.
The study showed that an environment enriched with varied stimuli could
help organisms regain long-term memories.
This
recovery of long-term memory was really the most
remarkable finding. It suggests that memories are not really erased in
such disorders as Alzheimer’s, but that they are rendered
inaccessible and can be recovered...
...The…
omnibrain | May 4, 2007
Paxilback - Gray Kid parody of Justin Timberlake's Sexyback - enjoy!
(HT: boingboing)
omnibrain | May 3, 2007There's an interesting post over at Mind Hacks about this woman:
Dear Editor
We report the case of an elderly lady with no experience of using a personal computer or internet technology, whose delusional experiences included the direct personal receipt of email.
Ms T, an 84-year old female with a 40-year history of schizoaffective disorder, presented with a delusional belief that something precious and of value 'for all people' had been inserted into her body by a doctor in Germany in the 1950s. She had sought medical help because she believed that an abdominal operative procedure would be…
j7uy5 | May 1, 2007Data
presented at a Neurology conference shows structural changes in the
brain of Gulf War vets who are highly symptomatic of
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_Syndrome" rel="tag">Gulf
War Syndrome.
It appears that the findings have not yet been published; in fact, the
study has not been completed. So it is early to draw firm
conclusions. They've done MRIs on 36 persons; 18 with a high level of
symptoms, 18 with milder symptoms. The findings were
presented at the 59th annual meeting of the American Academy of
Neurology. The study is being done at Boston
University and…
j7uy5 | April 29, 2007It is
not often that retired NFL players get published in medical journals,
but apparently it does happen.
Eric
Hipple, formerly a quarterback for the
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_Lions">Detroit
Lions, has an article in Medicine & Science in Sports
& Exercise. Granted, he is the fourth or four
authors, but it is still impressive.
href="http://www.acsm-msse.org/pt/re/msse/abstract.00005768-200704000-00004.htm;jsessionid=G1nNFn2gynmmw6jdJyypDN9CmTLcf2hpnt4FHWVKpD4gzwGFJ2hl%21-1465501618%21-949856144%218091%21-1">Depression
and Pain in Retired Professional…
omnibrain | April 17, 2007Dr. Janet Hall of Melbourne Australia has found a number of new ways to use hypnosis to 'cure' her patients phobias. These phobias are completely new to me ;)
She said one Indian woman with a sperm phobia overcame her fear in three sessions and was now pregnant.
Another woman used the therapy to successfully overcome the fear that her husband was going to be "swallowed up" during sex.
I wonder if hypnosis can cure my fear of pseudoscience?
link
j7uy5 | April 17, 2007Nightmares
are a terrible problem for many persons with posttraumatic stress
disorder. Not only that, but they can be difficult to treat.
Lately, the LA Times has taken to emailing me a summary of some of
their Science & Medicine headlines. I'm not sure why;
maybe the LA Times thinks the mighty prowess of ScienceBlogs will save
them from a corporate takeover somehow.
Anyway, they did report one thing that I noticed and want to pass along:
href="http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-ptsd14apr14,1,2738769.story?coll=la-news-science">
href="http://www.latimes.com/news/…
j7uy5 | March 30, 2007
A while back I started a series about the science and logic (and other
factors) involved in the selection of antidepressant medication.
I suppose I could put in the pinks to the first four parts,
but anyone can use the search box in the left-hand sidebar to search
for "selection of antidepressants" to find them. I suppose
when I am done I will go back to the first one and put in a list of
links to all the posts in the series.
style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">
The first four posts presented a top-down view, looking at the concepts
and principles used when choosing an…
omnibrain | March 20, 2007It was one year ago today that I made the first post to Omni Brain. I never imagined we would do this well.
In the last year Omni Brain has undergone many many changes, the biggest of which have been Sandra of Neurofuture fame joining the blog, and moving to ScienceBlogs.
We started with not-even 3000 page views in our first full month and now receive tens of thousands of page views and visitors - which is pretty great for a smart ass little science blog! Our Technorati ranking has also grown by leaps and bounds; near 14,000 today.
Thanks everyone, for reading and for all your lively…
omnibrain | March 16, 2007It sounds good doesn't it?! Just read a bit further until you realize what they're actually saying...
The president of the leading Southern Baptist seminary has suggested that a biological basis for homosexuality may be proven, and that prenatal treatment to reverse gay orientation would be biblically justified.
The Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., and one of the country's evangelical leaders, posted the article on his personal Web site earlier this month.
Mr. Mohler said in the article that scientific research "points to…
j7uy5 | March 13, 2007I
really liked Jonah's post at The Frontal Cortex,
about
href="http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2007/03/dreaming_smelling_and_memory.php">Dreaming,
Smelling and Memory. But I have to take issue with
his treatment of the use of dream interpretation in Freudian
psychotherapy.
I know this is a nit-picky point, and is completely tangential to the
point of his post. But this close to Piday, we need to be
thinking about things like tangents.
It is true that psychoanalysts refer to dreams as "the royal road to
the unconscious." It is true that the interpretation of
dreams can be an…
j7uy5 | March 9, 2007...That
is probably bad advice. Never take legal advice from someone
who is not your lawyer. The only thing worse than taking
legal advice from someone who is not your lawyer, is to take legal
advice from somebody else's lawyer.
With that disclaimer out of the way, I am going to tell you what I find
particularly galling about the
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070309/national-security-letters">FBI
"National Security Letter" scandal. Yeah, it shows
that we can't trust our own law enforcement agencies. But we
knew that already. So why do I find this issue to be…
j7uy5 | March 8, 2007The
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagnostic_and_Statistical_Manual_of_Mental_Disorders">DSM
refers to anhedonia as one of the two core symptoms
of depression; the other core symptom is depressed mood itself.
What is anhedonia, and why is it so important?
First, let's consider what it is not. Those of you who tend
to
derive the meaning of a word from the Greek roots will recognize the
similarity to the word, hedonism (
href="http://www.answers.com/hedonism&r=67">1
href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hedonism/">2),
which is commonly understood to be a focus,…