Haloperidol, hyperthyroidism, and sudden death.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to M F Weiner.
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There are many potential causes for malpractice actions in outpatient psychotherapy. Pertinent cases are reviewed, their implications discussed, and means by which practitioners can avert malpractice are described.
The pragmatic test of whether a troubled couple should be treated by an approach oriented toward intrapsychic problems or by an approach with an interpersonal focus lies in the couple's perception of their difficulties. If intrapsychic difficulties are ego-syntonic and experienced primarily at an interpersonal level, that is the level at which treatment must be done. To the extent that each of the marital partners has a differing goal for treatment, different levels of treatment, including individual therapy for both, must be available after an adequate trial of dealing with the couple as a unit.
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In a group of 242 community-dwelling patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), a longitudinal comparison was made of two caregiver-administered instruments for assessment of behavioral disturbance; the Cohen-Mansfield Agitation Inventory (CMAI) and the CERAD Behavioral Rating Scale for Dementia (BRSD). We examined records of the 206 patients with baseline and 12-month follow-up data for the CMAI and the BRSD who also had tests of cognitive (Mini-mental State; MMSE) and global function (Clinical Dementia Rating; CDR and Functional Assessment Staging; FAST). Among 114 AD subjects, the correlation between total CMAI at baseline and 1 month readministration was 0.83 (p < 0.0001). In the same subjects, stratified into 5 groups by MMSE scores, the correlations between BRSD baseline and 1-month scores ranged from 0.70-0.89 (p < 0.0001). There was high correlation between total scores of both instruments at baseline and 12 months. In addition, all CMAI subscales except Verbally Aggressive correlated significantly with total BRSD score at both time points. At baseline, BRSD subscales for irritability/aggression, behavioral dysregulation and psychotic symptoms and at 12 months, irritability/aggression and behavioral dysregulation correlated with total CMAI scores. Neither scale changed significantly over 1 year, but there was wide individual variation. CMAI and BRSD scores correlated with 1-year change in the FAST, but not with MMSE or CDR (which weighs cognition heavily), suggesting that behavioral disturbance may be more strongly related to ability to manage activities of daily living (executive function) than to other aspects of cognition. The CMAI and BRSD appear to be interchangeable as measures of agitation, with the CMAI possibly more useful for patients who lack language and the BRSD more sensitive to apathy and depression.
In the course of a four-month study of interventions for behavioral disturbances in Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients, the following assessment instruments were examined for validity: the clinical global impression of change (CGIC), Cohen-Mansfield agitation inventory (CMAI); CERAD behavioral rating scale for dementia (BRSD), revised memory and behavioral problems checklist (RMBPC) and the agitated behavior in dementia scale (ABID). The four specific behavioral/agitation scales had excellent cross-sectional and longitudinal correlations with each other, suggesting high validity, but changes as indicated by CGIC scores did not correlate well with change scores on the other instruments. We conclude that specific behavioral instruments are preferable to the more general CGIC for detecting and quantifying behavioral disturbances in AD patients.
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Verbal fluency tests are commonly used in neurocognitive and mental status examinations in patients with suspected dementia. Inflation of test scores as a result of practice effects may yield false-negative results in test-retest and multidisciplinary settings, particularly among patients with mild cognitive deficits. To address this issue, animal naming was administered twice within a 1-week period to a group of individuals referred for suspected dementia who were ultimately diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (MCI; amnestic form), probable Alzheimer disease (AD), or no dementia. A 2 x 3 repeated-measures analysis of variance revealed a statistically significant interaction between administration time and group. Post hoc analyses indicated that nondemented controls were the only group to demonstrate a significant practice effect, producing an average of approximately three more animal names at time two. Like patients with a diagnosis of AD, subjects with amnestic MCI failed to benefit from repeated exposure to the animal naming test, and only controls showed an average improvement upon retest. This underscores the cognitive similarity between individuals diagnosed with amnestic MCI and AD and suggests that improvement upon retest may be a diagnostically useful finding.
In an investigation of the impact of family visits on the behavior of 30 residents in dementia special care units, we found on direct observation that agitation decreased significantly during visits, but returned to the previous level within 30 minutes. No significant differences were found between visits by spouses or adult children. The premorbid quality of relationship was unrelated to family visitor enjoyment of visits or to differences between agitation level before and after visits. While 70 percent of visitors reported that they found visits pleasant (mean number of visits: 12.72 per month), 20 percent found visits unpleasant. Visitors' enjoyment or displeasure was significantly related to the difference between the number of pre-visit and post-visit agitated behaviors. Visitors indicated that the resident's mental status (33 percent) or difficulty communicating with the resident (30 percent) had the most negative impact on their visits. However, these factors appear amenable to education, suggesting that the quality of visits can be improved for visitor and resident with possibly greater positive impact on both.
Two cases from an adolescent dialysis group are presented to illustrate the limitations of the generally used models of patient compliance and noncompliance with medical treatment. Understanding the noncompliance of these two young men required awareness of their psychological development and of the interpersonal matrix in which they lived. Their noncompliance was the result of a failure to master a transition from dependence to autonomy which probably could not have been predicted in advance, but which might have detected as it developed and might have been avoided through appropriate interventions with the patients and their families.