psychiatry

SciCurious has written an interesting post about Sigmund Freud's experiments with cocaine. Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, was also a pioneer of psychopharmacology; as well as being one of the first to scientifically investigate the properties and effects of cocaine, he also played a key role in the growth of the pharmaceuticals industry. In 1884, Freud read a paper which described the effects of cocaine on Bavarian soldiers. The author, a German physician named Theodor Aschenbrandt, reported that the drug suppressed the appetite and increased mental powers and endurance. Intrigued,…
href="http://www.researchblogging.org"> alt="ResearchBlogging.org" src="http://www.researchblogging.org/images/rbicons/ResearchBlogging-Medium-White.png" height="50" width="80">Just as we learn of favorable studies about rTMS (see yesterday's post on this blog), studies that suggest that ECT could be surpassed, the ECT camp fires again.  A new study by Sackeim indicates that a new form of ECT is highly effective, with lower negative impact on cognition.  The difference is in the length of the electrical pulse.  They use what they call an ultrabrief pulse (0.3 millisecond), as…
Jonah posted an href="http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2008/05/tms.php">interesting video of  href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulation" rel="tag">Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) on The Frontal Cortex.  That got me to wondering if there was anything new.   In January 2007, the US FDA href="http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/07/briefing/2007-4273b1_00-index.htm">concluded that rTMS was safe, but they were unconvinced of its effectiveness.  Their conclusion href="http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jan07/comments/1697">was arguable, but the…
alt="ResearchBlogging.org" src="http://www.researchblogging.org/images/rbicons/ResearchBlogging-Medium-White.png" align="left" border="0" height="50" hspace="3" vspace="3" width="80">I have to admit, I retain some skepticism about the concept of href="http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2008/04/seasonal_affective_disorder_th_2.php">Seasonal Affective Disorder.  Research such as the topic of this post helps, though, to lend some credibility to the concept.   It is true that exposure to bright light therapy (BLT) can alleviate symptoms of SAD.  That alone would seem to verify the…
A while back, href="http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2007/11/sherwin_nuland_a_history_of_el.php">Gred Laden and href="http://ectweb.blogspot.com/2007/10/video-of-lecture-on-electroconvulsive.html">Dr. Shock independently linked to a remarkable video.  In it, a famous author-surgeon-professor reveals that he had had an episode of severe depression.  Moreover, he underwent treatment with electroconvulsive therapy.  It worked, he got back to work, and went on to have a distinguished career.  The video can be seen here -- href="http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/189">Sherwin Nuland…
Dinah, writing at Shrink Rap, got href="http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/05/02/meanness-and-psychiatry-dont-mix/?mod=WSJBlog">mentioned in the Wall Steet Journal, of all places.  Her post " href="http://psychiatrist-blog.blogspot.com/2008/05/my-therapist-is-creep.html">My Therapist is a Creep" caught the attention of their health blogger, Scott Hensley.
“Doctors think, ‘Well, of course she’s depressed — she’s dying of breast cancer,’” he said. I do see that kind of response sometimes, not just with regard to terminally ill patients.  The physician does not think the depression should be treated, because it is felt to be an expected response to the situation. If I even show up in an emergency department with a gunshot wound in my abdomen, I sure hope the doc doesn't refuse to treat it, saying "of course he's bleeding to death, he's been shot in the spleen." The fact is, some patients with terminal cancer do develop major depression.  But…
Medscape has one of their brief 0.25 CME articles on the subject of methylphenidate (Ritalin, et. al.) and the effect it has on sleep.  (You have to register to read it, but registration is free.) This is interesting because it illustrates nicely how psychopharmacology can be confusing.  In this post, I try to show some of the ways in which this confusion can occur. href="http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/571987">Stimulant Improves Sleep in Adults With ADHD News Author: Pauline Anderson CME Author: Charles Vega, MD March 26, 2008 — A study suggests that the central nervous system…
GrrlScientist wrote href="http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2008/02/diagnosing_bipolar_disorder_wi.php">a post last month about a potential genetic test for bipolar disorder.  Read that first to get some background. Now, it turns out that a company is selling a testing kit that you can use yourself, in the privacy of your own home, to see if you have genes that increase the risk of bipolar disorder. href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/23/health/main3960929.shtml">At-Home Psychiatric Gene Tests Stir Debate New Methods Of Testing Patients' Risk May Lead To More…
This item just appeared on the news tubes, and I thought I'd pass it along.   href="http://news.monstersandcritics.com/health/news/article_1396601.php/Distinguishing_signs_of_early_dementia_from_depression_is_tricky">Distinguishing signs of early dementia from depression is tricky Mar 24, 2008, 3:07 GMT Berlin - It's often difficult to differentiate between early stages of dementia and depression, but a precise psychiatric examination can help, said the German society for psychiatry, psychotherapy and neurology in Berlin. 'An Alzheimer dementia usually begins with creeping…
A reader pointed me to this article, by Miriam Axel-Lute, about the Nonsensical Gyrations that Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield (of New Jersey) is going through to try to avoid paying for health care: href="http://www.metroland.net/back_issues/vol31_no10/looking_up.html">What’s Healthy? If you were an insurance company trying to cut your costs, how would you do it? Emphasize prevention over cure? Cover birth control? Allow coverage of cheaper alternatives, like in-home care over nursing homes or examine ways to encourage use of primary care providers over the emergency room? Or…
The LA Times has a story about the author's own struggle with href="http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000923.htm">panic disorder and agoraphobia.   href="http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/scimedemail/la-hew-panic3mar03,0,2971333.story"> href="http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/scimedemail/la-hew-panic3mar03,0,2971333.story">For a Paxil-free life, she'll take the long route It takes some time, but this student learns there's no quick fix for panic attacks. By Summer Beretsky, Special to The Times March 3, 2008 Some people can't stand the word "irregardless…
Hoisted href="http://scienceblogs.com/corpuscallosum/2008/02/clear_think_about_the_overmedi.php#comment-768312">from the comments: I find it particularly alarming that children are prescribed some of these drugs. How much is truly known about how various psychiatric drugs affect the development of the brain? If a fifteen-year-old is put on a regimen of SSRI inhibitors, how will it affect him down the road? If he's on them long enough, will he experience any adverse effects when he's thirty-five or forty? For that reason, I think that physicians should be extremely sparing in prescribing…
Judith Warner has some insightful essays in the NYT column, pertaining to the long-raging question about whether psychiatric patients are style="font-style: italic;">overmedicated or style="font-style: italic;">undermedicated. One of the essays addresses the question directly: style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/overselling-overmedication/">Overselling Overmedication Judith Warner February 14, 2008 ...In the book, Barber argues that Americans are being vastly overmedicated for often relatively minor mental health concerns. This over-…
I noticed while writing this, that the word style="font-style: italic;">numb, if modified by adding the suffix -er, becomes an entirely different word.   style="font-style: italic;">Number does not convey the meaning of more numb. According to Answers.com, number is a adjective, with the root numb.  The thing is, it only works if spoken; if written, it is ambiguous.  Ambiguity can be useful, but usually it is just a nuisance.   Anyway.   href="http://www.charlesbarberwriting.com/pages/author.html" rel="tag">Charles Barber wrote a book, href="http://www.charlesbarberwriting.…
Zyprexa Adhera is a new formulation of href="http://zyprexa.com/index.jsp">Eli LIlly's antipsychotic medication, href="http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/medmaster/a601213.html">olanzapine.  It contains the same active ingredient as the pills, but it is a long-acting injection.  It is supposed to last two to four weeks. There is not a lot of specific information available yet.  It is not on the market yet, either.  The milestone is that in was just recommended for approval by the title="Food and Drug Administration"> href="http://www.fda.gov/">FDA. Background:…
Here's a wonderful spoof of .. well... I'm not really sure what. Perhaps an old Documentary focusing on the diseases of the mind? In any case it's terribly entertaining.
Usually I cringe when I see yet another newspaper article about suicide.  But I always read them.  This time, I did cringe, but needlessly.  The article turned out to be OK. href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/washington/24fda.html?ei=5090&en=69952ee3ab69a7b3&ex=1358917200&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print">F.D.A. Requiring Suicide Studies in Drug Trials By href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/gardiner_harris/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More Articles by Gardiner Harris">GARDINER HARRIS January 24, 2008 src…
Just a short note via Sports Illustrated: Georgia football legend Herschel Walker is expected to reveal in an upcoming book that he has multiple personalities -- a revelation that surprises the man who coached the 1982 Heisman Trophy winner. ... "Breaking Free" will chronicle Walker's life with multiple personality disorder, according to Shida Carr, the book's publicist at Simon & Schuster. Carr said the book will be published in August, but gave no other details and declined to provide excerpts. I wonder whether this developed after football? I'm curious to see the book when it comes…
Don't play any of the embedded videos if you've ever had a seizure. Now that we're done with the warning... We've all heard of the Pokemon incident in Japan where nearly 700 school aged children were admitted to the hospital with "convulsions, vomiting, irritated eyes and other symptoms" common to epilepsy. This lead to a number of government investigations and media companies searching their offerings to determine whether any of their shows had similar scenes that might induce photosensitive epilepsy. According to a CNN report of the incidents: Dr. Yukio Fukuyama, a juvenile epilepsy…