Seroquel Abuse Rising, Along With Ambulance Calls
Australian researchers have uncovered an alarming increase of Seroquel-related ambulances calls. Rising prescriptions of of the drug along with its developing use as a drug...
High Cost to Medicaid Programs For Off-Label Use of Antipsychotics
A study of 42 state Medicaid programs found that 58% of prescriptions for antipsychotics were not for schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Off-label prescribing was most prevalent...
45% of Children and Adolescent Inpatients Prescribed Antipsychotics
In a rare long-term study of antipsychotics used in children and adolescent inpatients, the Institute of Living in Hartford, CT followed 3,851 consecutive admissions...
Ritalin Impairs Learning and Memory
Ritalin reduced impulsive responses and increased the amount of time willing to stay on task of Rhesus monkeys in a study from the University...
Women on SSRIs Less Likely To Breastfeed
In a prospective cohort study of 466 pregnant women over 10 years, researchers at the California Teratogen Information Service found that women exposed to...
Activity-Based Therapies Reduce Antipsychotic Use
Researchers from the University of North Carolina found that activity-based therapy and care reduced the use of antipsychotics in a study of 107 people...
Overprescribing of Benzodiazepines
Norwegian researchers found that 14.6% (27,861) of patients who were prescribed benzodiazepines used two simultaneously, despite the fact that all benzodiazepines have essentially the...
Brain Volume Recovers With Remission, Not With Medication
In a prospective study of 28 outpatients with major depression, Canadian researchers investigated whether brain volume changes stabilized with antidepressant treatment and/or reversed with...
WHO Says Newer Antipsychotics Most Costly, Least Effective Strategy
In an analysis of neuropsychiatric conditions in sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asia, the World Health Organization found that inpatient treatment of schizophrenia with...
ADHD Overtreated in Relatively Younger Children
An 11-year study of 937,943 children in British Columbia found that boys who were relatively younger than their classmates were 41% more likely to...
SSRIs Cause Delayed Head Growth and Premature Birth
In a study of 7,696 pregnant women, researchers in the Netherlands and the U.S. found that SSRIs caused slower head growth and premature birth....
Rise of Antipsychotics in Children
Researchers at Johns Hopkins explore the use of antipsychotics in children, finding a dramatic rise in off-label prescribing with little oversight or research into...
Risk of Death in the Elderly Trebled With Antipsychotics
In a nine-year study of all 2,224 residents of Leppävirta, Finland who were 65 years old or older, researchers found that the 332 residents...
Psychotropics Accelerate Cognitive and Functional Decline
Researchers at Johns Hopkins, The Mayo Clinic, Harvard Medical School, Duke and others found in a study of 230 Alzheimer's patients tracked over four...
Antidepressant Use Associated with Brain Atrophy and Lesions in Elderly
In a study of 630 elderly Manhattanites without dementia, researchers from the Netherlands found that antidepressant use was associated with significantly more brain atrophy,...
Antidepressant Use and Cognitive Impairment After Menopause
A study of 6,998 postmenopausal women followed over 7.5 years found that antidepressant use correlated with a 70% increased risk of cognitive impairment. The...
Cumulative Risk of Impairment and Death From Anticholinergic Medication
The New York Times reports that a two-year longitudinal study of over 13,000 men and women over 65 found that anticholinergic medications, which include many...
Antipsychotics for Dementia: Not Justified and Risky
In a study of antipsychotics used to treat 75,445 patients in nursing homes in the United States, researchers from Harvard Medical School, Columbia and...
Better Recovery and Less Relapse Without Meds: A 20-Year Study
Researchers at the University of Illinois College of Medicine found, in a 20-year prospective study of 139 psychotic patients, that patients had a far...
Some Avoid Antipsychotics Because They Value Psychosis
Side effects, mistrust, stigma, forgetfulness and lack of insight have all been studied as reasons that up to 75% of people with a schizophrenia...
Benzo Discontinuation Improves Quality of Life and Reduces Symptoms of Schizophrenia
Researchers in Japan find that tapering or reducing benzodiazepines has a positive effect on quality of life, verbal and working memory, and psychiatric symptoms...
Non-Drug Therapies Outperform Drug Therapies in Preventing Relapse
In a study of 597 outpatients who were perceived as likely nonadherers to oral antipsychotic interventions, Spanish researchers found that relapse was lower in...
Antidepressants Have No Effect On Bipolar Depression
In a review of 68 articles published between 2005 and 2011, Israeli researchers found that most well-controlled studies failed to show a significant effect of...
Antipsychotic Use Does Not Correlate With Conversion to Psychosis
Researchers in Brazil find, in a meta-analysis, that only 30% of youth deemed to be of ultra high risk of psychosis do in fact...
Suicidal Thoughts and Behavior With Antidepressant Treatment: A Reanalysis
In 2004 and 2006, the FDA concluded that SSRI antidepressants increased the risk of suicidal ideation in children and adolescents. However, in this month's...
