(PSYCHIATRIC TIMES) - Philips Medical Systems is developing software that will optimize and analyze PET brain images for signs of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia. An early version of the prototype will soon be evaluated by researchers at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany, who are working with Philips' scientists to evolve the technology into a clinically useful tool.
Functional and structural brain-scan information has been compiled on the…
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Added by psychiatryRounds Psychiatry News on June 28, 2007 at 10:00pm —
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(PSYCHIATRIC TIMES) - MedPage Today Action Points
o Explain to interested patients that older depressed patients who benefit from taking SSRIs should be screened regularly for osteoporosis and for possible preventive drug therapy.
MINNEAPOLIS, June 27 -- Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) have been linked to decreased bone density in older women and men, two related studies found.
The paired studies at different institutions, reported in the June 25…
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(PSYCHIATRIC TIMES) - INDIANAPOLIS, June 25 -- Both behavioral and medication interventions have their place in treatment of insomnia.
"If you can get a patient to sleep, they worry less about being awake, they feel better during the day, and that confidence decreases the factors that take a person from transient to chronic insomnia," Phyllis Zee, M.D., Ph.D., a sleep specialist at Northwestern University told attendees at the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners meeting…
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(PSYCHIATRIC TIMES) - MedPage Today Action Points
o Explain to interested patients that drug coverage offered by Medicare Part D varies widely, but in general formularies are move likely to cover generic drugs.
o Explain to interested patients that detailed lists of drugs covered by specific Part D plans are available on Web sites.
HONOLULU, June 19 -- Medicare Part D formularies cover nearly all drug classes for treatment of hypertension, hyperlidemia, and…
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Added by psychiatryRounds Psychiatry News on June 19, 2007 at 10:30pm —
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(PSYCHIATRIC TIMES) - Alzheimer's disease researchers may be able to reduce the time and expense associated with clinical trials, according to early results from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), a public-private research partnership organized by the National Institutes of Health.
Preliminary results from the ADNI, a $60 million five-year study that began recruiting in early 2006, show how it might yield improved methods and uniform standards for imaging and…
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Added by psychiatryRounds Psychiatry News on June 19, 2007 at 10:00pm —
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(PSYCHIATRIC TIMES) - MedPage Today Action Points
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn., June 14 -- Sleep specialists here reviewed the problems and alternatives for treating insomnia.
"We have always been able to get a person to sleep," said David Neubauer, M.D., of Johns Hopkins. "We have been able to get people to sleep since the ancient Greeks. The problem has always been to get them awake again."
"But there is a tremendous array of new products coming that will allow us to…
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(PSYCHIATRIC TIMES) - MINNEAPOLIS, Minn., June 14 -- Sleep specialists here reviewed the problems and alternatives for treating insomnia.
"We have always been able to get a person to sleep," said David Neubauer, M.D., of Johns Hopkins. "We have been able to get people to sleep since the ancient Greeks. The problem has always been to get them awake again."
"But there is a tremendous array of new products coming that will allow us to not only treat large numbers of people…
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Added by psychiatryRounds Psychiatry News on June 14, 2007 at 6:00am —
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(PSYCHIATRIC TIMES) - MedPage Today Action Points
o Explain to patients that this study suggests that sleep problems may be associated with other problems including a failure to eat healthy foods.
o This study was published as an abstract and presented orally at a conference. These data and conclusions should be considered to be preliminary as they have not yet been reviewed and published in a peer-reviewed publication.
MINNEAPOLIS, June 13 -- Poor sleepers may…
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Added by psychiatryRounds Psychiatry News on June 13, 2007 at 6:00am —
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(PSYCHIATRIC TIMES) - MedPage Today Action Points
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn., June 12 -- Despite disappointing performance in clinical trials, anti-insomnia drugs that improve short-wave sleep may still have a role in helping people get a good night's rest, a sleep specialist predicted here.
"We haven't heard the last of short-wave sleep," said James Walsh, Ph.D., of St. John's Mercy and St. Luke's Hospital, St. Louis, during an industry-sponsored satellite symposium held in…
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(PSYCHIATRIC TIMES) - MedPage Today Action Points
o Suggest to patients who are policemen that they may be at risk for sleep problems and the health issues they raise.
o This study was published as an abstract and presented orally at a conference. These data and conclusions should be considered to be preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed publication.
MINNEAPOLIS, June 13 -- Four out of 10 police officers may be working with sleep abnormalities,…
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Added by psychiatryRounds Psychiatry News on June 13, 2007 at 1:00am —
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(PSYCHIATRIC TIMES) - MedPage Today Action Points
WASHINGTON, June 11 -- The worldwide prevalence of Alzheimer's disease, estimated at 26.6 million patents, may quadruple by 2050, according to a mathematical model.
That "looming global epidemic" of 107 million patients in less than a half century was forecast by a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health team at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference on Prevention of Dementia. The findings were also…
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Added by psychiatryRounds Psychiatry News on June 11, 2007 at 10:00pm —
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(PSYCHIATRIC TIMES) - MedPage Today Action Points
o Explain to interested patients that this report describes an assessment tool that has not been tested in a large randomized trial.
o This report is based upon material published as an abstract and presented at a meeting. It has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal.
WASHINGTON, June 11 -- The risk of developing dementia within six years can be predicted by a simple assessment tool that relies on…
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(PSYCHIATRIC TIMES) - WASHINGTON, June 11 -- The worldwide prevalence of Alzheimer's disease, estimated at 26.6 million patents, may quadruple by 2050, according to a mathematical model.
That "looming global epidemic" of 107 million patients in less than a half century was forecast by a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health team at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference on Prevention of Dementia. The findings were also published in Alzheimer's &…
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Added by psychiatryRounds Psychiatry News on June 11, 2007 at 10:00pm —
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(PSYCHIATRIC TIMES) - WASHINGTON, June 11 -- The risk of developing dementia within six years can be predicted by a simple assessment tool that relies on clinical impression and patient history, researchers reported here.
The key indicators were older age, non-white race, poor cognitive function, poor physical performance, extreme inactivity, history of bypass surgery, low body mass index, and lack of alcohol consumption (ROC, 0.79; 95% CI: 0.76 - 0.81; accuracy, 87%), said Deborah…
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(PSYCHIATRIC TIMES) - Australian researchers have used PET with Pittsburgh Compound B (PIB) to establish a correlation between the progressive accumulation of beta-amyloid plaque in the brain and cognitive deterioration associated with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease.
PIB-PET studies at Austin Hospital's Centre for PET in Melbourne, Australia, involving 150 subjects who underwent psychometric memory tests, show that beta-amyloid plaque is related to the fundamental…
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Added by psychiatryRounds Psychiatry News on June 6, 2007 at 10:00pm —
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(PSYCHIATRIC TIMES) - MedPage Today Action Points
o Explain to interested patients that antipsychotics drugs are licensed to treat conditions such as schizophrenia, but are sometimes used off-label to treat some aspects of dementia.
o Note that this study suggests that such use is accompanied by an increased for death, a risk that appears relatively quickly
KINGSTON, Ontario, June 4 -- Using antipsychotic drugs to treat patients with dementia may be fatal,…
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Added by psychiatryRounds Psychiatry News on June 4, 2007 at 10:00pm —
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(PSYCHIATRIC TIMES) - KINGSTON, Ontario, June 4 -- Using antipsychotic drugs to treat patients with dementia may be fatal, according to researchers here.They found a sharply increased risk of death that was evident within a month of starting the drugs, reported Sudeep Gill, M.D., of Queen's University and St. Mary's of the Lake Hospital, and colleagues, in the June issue of Annals of Internal Medicine.
The mortality rate was higher with the older "conventional" medications than with…
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(PSYCHIATRIC TIMES) - MedPage Today Action Points
o Explain to interested patients that the study suggests cancer patients without an indication for antidepressant treatment should not receive it.
o Explain that the study does not suggest changing clinical practice or indications for the use of antidepressant medication in cancer patients with major depression.
CHICAGO, June 3 -- Unless cancer patients have major depression, antidepressants don't seem to do…
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Added by psychiatryRounds Psychiatry News on June 3, 2007 at 10:30pm —
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(PSYCHIATRIC TIMES) - MedPage Today Action Points
o Explain to patients who ask that older adults with depression may benefit from a second medication if the first-line antidepressant doesn't prove adequate, the authors of this study found.
PITTSBURGH, June 1 -- Adding another drug when older patients don't respond well to an initial course of antidepressants may be of benefit, researchers here suggested.
Half of depressed patients age 70 and older who had an…
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Added by psychiatryRounds Psychiatry News on June 1, 2007 at 10:30pm —
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(PSYCHIATRIC TIMES) - In what was billed as the first randomized controlled study to simultaneously evaluate antidepressant therapy and short-term psychotherapy for depressed patients with coronary artery disease (CAD), treatment with an SSRI led to significant improvement, while addition of interpersonal psychotherapy provided no added benefit.
With evidence increasing over 2 decades that major depression worsens the prognosis in patients with CAD, the Canadian Cardiac Randomized…
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Added by psychiatryRounds Psychiatry News on June 1, 2007 at 10:30pm —
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