The risks of congenital malformations and impact of cognitive development after foetal exposure to anti-epileptic drugs has been known for some time. Sodium valproate is a frequently used drug for epilepsy and other disorders (including bipolar disorder and migraine). The researchers aimed to examine the link between foetal exposure and subsequent development of autism. Methods [read the full story...]
I wonder if the timing of this publication was planned to be so close to the release of DSM-5, but this debut guidance on social phobia (now known as social anxiety disorder) is certainly going to ruffle some feathers. It fuels the discussion about the medicalisation of human personality traits and some will see it [read the full story...]
Clinical depression is unfortunately relatively common in adolescence with a prevalence of about 5%. The rates of suicide per 100,000 are around 12.0 for females and 14.2 for males aged 15-24 years with suicidality (thoughts or uncompleted attempts at suicide) likely to be higher. Research and clinical experience suggests issues relating to suicide and depression [read the full story...]
The potential dangers of illegal drug use are never far from the media spotlight, and drug use during pregnancy may be associated with particular health problems both for the Mother and baby. Drug use during pregnancy has been linked with a number of negative outcomes, for example, cocaine use has been linked with an increased [read the full story...]
Childhood trauma and abuse is the smoking of psychiatry. As a risk factor for mental illness it is comparable to how smoking a pack of cigarettes per day increases the risk of lung cancer and heart disease. As an adult psychiatrist I see the consequences of poor starts to life and do my best to [read the full story...]
Community treatment orders (CTO’s) provide compulsory supervision outside of psychiatric hospital. They require patients to accept clinical monitoring in the community and enable them to be recalled to hospital for assessment if necessary. They do not authorise forcible treatment; however whilst on a CTO a patient may be ordered to meet certain requirements, such as [read the full story...]
When you were young(er), did you also engage in personality predictions with your peers based on order in the family? For example, that the oldest of three siblings would be the bossiest and the youngest the most spoiled? Almost everyone (90% of us) have one or more siblings. And we know they play an important role [read the full story...]
The period after giving birth to a child can be difficult for women and in the first twelve weeks after childbirth 13-19% of women will experience post-partum depression (O’Hara 1996, Gaynes 2005). Post-partum depression is bad news – not only does it increase the chance of the mother going onto develop a severe clinical depression [read the full story...]
Depression is such a widely known issue now that it barely needs introduction. It’s something we Elves have covered with interest, looking at the effectiveness of various treatments, like psychotherapy, medication and exercise. For older adults though, there remains a somewhat hazy picture of what treatments work best. Most of the evidence base for the [read the full story...]
NICE have published a new guide to help commissioners provide evidence-based care for people with dementia. Providing care for our ageing population seems not to have been out of the news in recent years and rightly so, especially as the headline stories are frequently not positive. A recent Care Quality Commission report found that people [read the full story...]
