Disorders

While most treatments have had "statistically significant" success in clinical trials, no common psychiatric or psychological treatments improve the negative symptoms of schizophrenia at levels that are "clinically meaningful."

Foster children in Pennsylvania are being given psychotropic drugs by physicians at rates that are "disturbing" and "unacceptable," according to the state's Department of Human Services.

The odds of a child with Downs Syndrome being on a psychotropic medication increase steadily with age.

Continuing to take antidepressants during pregnancy was associated with higher rates of depressive relapses and hospitalizations than discontinuing.

University of Groningen researchers analyzed only small, short-term clinical trials of generally poor quality to determine that antipsychotics are not linked to increased risk of death in elderly people with dementia.

An equal percentage of young people will start misusing ADHD-related and other stimulant drugs for the first time at age 13 as will start at age 20.

-Mental "imagery" plays a role in psychological suffering prompted by vivid memories, and also in healing modalities such as creative visualization.

-Some nursing homes are changing their approaches since the US federal government began more closely regulating the use of antipsychotic medications in elderly patients with dementia.

A meta-analysis of studies found that the risk of dementia increased 22% for every additional twenty daily doses of benzodiazepine medications annually.

-Children's ways of thinking and feeling are being strongly shaped and delimited, as early as the age of five, through the imposition of social categories and stereotypes.

-NPR interviews some of the psychiatrists who feel that the fast-acting drug ketamine is a "revolution" in depression treatment.

The brains of adolescents diagnosed with bipolar disorder develop differently than the brains of teens without the disorder, according to a study in Biological...

-Correspondence in The Lancet Psychiatry suggests that a study linking depression to acts of violence should have examined antidepressant medications as possible causes.

-"Aboriginal youth are nine times more likely to be depressed and three times more likely to think about suicide compared to non-aboriginal youth."

One reason that depression is linked to later psychological problems in children could be because depressed mothers often have less healthy diets.

-Emphasis on language "political correctness" on many college and university campuses may have less to do with politics than with how we process trauma.

-BPS Research Digest reports on growing efforts to understand the voices that virtually everyone hears in their heads.

Not an Onion Study: The first-ever injectable antipsychotic that lasts for three months was approved based on one clinical trial in which it prevented relapses better than putting people into sudden withdrawal.

Medicating children for a host of mental disorders has become very popular in some parts of the USA. More than 8 million kids from 6 months to 17 years of age are on pharmaceutical drugs in this wonderful country. We lead the world in drugging youth for behavioral, cognitive and attention issues. We are once again #1. But I would like to share with parents as well as adults working with children a few not so readily available facts related to medicating kids for behavior issues.

Depressed pregnant women need good care.  They should not be made to feel guilty for the choices they make concerning their depression or lectured to by those who don’t understand the area or lack compassion for them.  In that sense, Andrew Solomon does the public a service by turning his attention and writing talents to the topic of depression and pregnancy this week in the New York Times.  However, a crucial part of providing good care to depressed pregnant women is to give them accurate information on the topic.  In this sense, Andrew Solomon falls short.

-"Temper, Anxiety, Homework Trouble Are Medical Issues? Many Parents Don’t Realize It," stated a University of Michigan press release and survey report.

-Buzzfeed looks at the history -- and present -- of how antipsychotic drugs became a common treatment for depression, despite their apparent lack of effectiveness.

Not an Onion Study: SSRI antidepressants did consistently outperform placebo in clinical trials, researchers discovered, so long as 16 of the 17 questions about patients' feelings are ignored.

-A neurologist reflects on psychiatric disorders that fall under the general category of "psychosomatic illnesses" such as spontaneous blindness, seizures and paralysis.

Children's positive responses to SSRI antidepressant treatments for depression are even less significant than adult responses, and do not last beyond four weeks.