Neurocognitive rehabilitation of Down syndrome

Blog post by Jean-Adolphe Rondal, Ph.D., jeanarondal@skynet.be, Emeritus Professor of Psycholinguistics at the University of Liège, Belgium, Juan Perera, Ph.D., asnimo@telefonica.net, Director of the Center Principe de Asturias, University of the Balearic Islands, Mallorca, Spain,  and Donna SPIKER, Ph.D., donna.spiker@sri.com  Program Manager of the Early Childhood Program, SRI International, Menlo Park, California, USA.

Down syndrome is one of the most commonly occurring developmental disorders, with considerable bodies of research within many different disciplines. Despite calls for strong interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches to both research and treatment of developmental disorders, including Down syndrome, bringing together knowledge across disciplines in a systematic and comprehensive way is still rare. 

Quality of life measurement in neurodegenerative and related conditions

Blog post by Crispin Jenkinson, Professor of Health Services Research, Department of Public Health, University of Oxford, and Senior Research Fellow, Harris Manchester College, Oxford, and Michele Peters, Research Officer,  Health Services Research Unit, Department of Public Health, University of Oxford

Patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) are questionnaires that ask people questions about their current health. PROMs assess or measure patients’ quality of life, or what is sometimes referred to as health-related quality of life. Two types of PROMs exists: generic and disease-specific. Generic PROMs can be used across a broad range of diseases as well as the general population; whereas disease-specific PROMs are designed to be used in a specific patient group. Disease-specific instruments are generally regarded as potentially both more precise and sensitive to changes than more generic measures because they are intended to reflect the particular demands of specific conditions. However, generic measures allow comparing health status of (disease) groups to population norms and between disease groups.

Neuroanesthesia and anesthesiology

Blog Post by George A. Mashour MD, PhD, Director, Division of Neuroanesthesiology and Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology and Neurosurgery,  University of Michigan

Neuroanesthesia is a subspecialty of anesthesiology that focuses on the perioperative care of patients undergoing surgery of the brain, spine or peripheral nerves. Because the drugs routinely used for anesthesia have their therapeutic action at all of these sites, anesthesiologists and neurosurgeons must “share” the nervous system during the course of an operation. This becomes particularly important at the end of surgery, when the assessment of neurologic function is a major priority. If, for example, a patient has suffered a stroke or has brain swelling, it needs to be recognized and acted upon rapidly before permanent damage occurs.

Core Competencies and the Psychosomatic Medicine “Supraspecialty”

Blog Post by James J. Amos MD, University of Iowa, USA 

At the annual Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine (APM) meeting this year held on Marco Island, Florida, I heard Dr. Theodore Stern call Psychosomatic Medicine (PM) a “supraspecialty”. Usually it’s described as a subspecialty.  I couldn’t find the word in Webster’s although “supra” comes from the Latin for “above, beyond, earlier”. One of the definitions is “transcending”.  I tried to Google “supraspecialty” and came up empty. So I guess it’s a neologism. The context was a workshop on how to enhance resident and medical student education on Psychosomatic Medicine services. Dr.  Stern coined the term while talking about the scope of practice of PM. As he went through the long list, it gradually dawned on me why “supraspecialty” as a title probably fits our profession, mainly because it makes us, as psychiatrists, accountable for aspects of general and specialty medical and surgical care above and beyond that of Psychiatry alone.

Conversion Disorder

Blog Post by James J. Amos MD, University of Iowa, USA 

I was fascinated by the blog “The Mind in Modern Medicine” by E.S. Krishnamoorthy, et al, posted 10/21/2010. As a Psychosomatic Medicine (PM) specialist, I’m often consulted by neurologists for help managing hysteria, nowadays called conversion disorder. Although it’s been in the somatoform disorder category for many years, the opinion of many of my colleagues is that it’s more of a dissociative state.

The Mind in Modern Medicine

Blog Post by Ennapadam S. Krishnamoorthy, (ESK) MBBS, MD, DCN (Lond), PhD (Lond), FRCP (Lond, Edin & Glas), MAMS (India), FIMSA, FIPS, an internationally recognized as a leader in the brain-mind interface, the field of Neuropsychiatry. Founder Director of The Neuropsychiatry Group
It is curious that the mind, so important at the turn of the 20th century, is experiencing today a reawakening in scientific and societal consciousness. The founders of modern medical science in the 18th and 19th centuries had clearly conceived the mind to be a representation of the brain; people like Alois Alzheimer demonstrated pathological abnormalities in the brain of people affected with dementia. Indeed, centuries earlier, the father of modern medicine, Hippocrates, had firmly placed “our joys, sorrows, desires and feelings” in the brain.

The Stolen Book

Blog Post by James J. Amos MD, University of Iowa, USA  

What I wanted to do as I took over the psychiatry consultation service this month was to highlight the usefulness of our newly published book Psychosomatic Medicine: An Introduction to Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry.  I planned to refer to the first chapter on consultation process in order to highlight the importance of clarifying the consultation question. When I asked the residents whether they’d yet seen the copy that I’d donated to the Staff Consult Office a couple of months ago, they said indeed they had, found it useful, and held it up for me to see.

23rd ECNP Congress -The European College of Neuropsychopharmacology

Mental disorders, such as depression, anxiety disorders, addiction and schizophrenia are the core challenge of most health care systems around the world. In the EU alone, each year 27% of the total adult population – this corresponds to 83 Million citizens – suffer from mental disorders. Depression alone affects almost 20 million ranking in the EU as the most disabling disorder of all diseases. Unless appropriately treated, mental disorders are typically associated with a wide range of complications and sequelae for the subjects affected, their partners and families as well as society as a whole, and they can be lethal. Suicide – a frequent complication of depression and other mental disorders – is a major cause of premature death in Europe with over 160.000 completed suicides every year; rates of attempted suicides are at least 10 times higher.

Next Generation Antidepressants

Blog Post by Stephen M. Stahl, MD, PhD, Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry, University of California San Diego, Chairman, Neuroscience Education Institute and Chad E. Beyer, PhD, MBA, Director, Medications Development, Lohocla Research Corporation, Associate Professor – Research, University of Colorado School of Medicine

Despite robust advances in our understanding of mood disorders, many of the complex processes, namely, our appreciation of disease etiology and developing more effective pharmacotherapies are still being explored. The World Health Organization (WHO) forecasts that mood disorders, in particular major depression, will become the second leading cause of death by the year 2020 – due mainly to complications arising from stress and the cardiovascular system. Consequently, the need to develop novel and more effective treatment strategies for the millions of patients suffering with mood disorders has never been more paramount.

Make sense of neuropsychology in psychiatry

Book Review by Vaughan Bell, Departamento de Psiquiatría, Hospital San Vicente de Paúl, Medellín, Colombia

One of the lesser noted revisions in the draft DSM-V is a change in the definition of a mental disorder from “a manifestation of a behavioral, psychological, or biological dysfunction” to one “that reflects an underlying psychobiological dysfunction”, highlighting the fact that we have increasingly come to regard neuropsychology as the best compromise in the vexatious mind-body problem and sometimes the reluctant redeemer of a medical speciality best known for its irreconcilable differences between objective and subjective worldviews.