Comment. The experience of persistent, distressing auditory verbal hallucinations (known as hearing voices) can be highly debilitating, and provision of better support for those affected is a priority for mental health services. A prominent and innovative approach is AVATAR therapy, in which staff help voice-hearers to design an audio-visual representation of the heard voice to facilitate a therapeutic dialogue, with the AVATAR voice being controlled by the therapist. After an initially promising pilot trial,1 Tom Craig and colleagues2 report encouraging evidence of AVATAR therapy's effectiveness in The Lancet Psychiatry......Please contact the library to request a copy of this article - http://bit.ly/1Xyazai
This is a promising piece of research into an innovative treatment. The next step will be to see if the benefits are still found when the therapy is trialled in more people at other centres.
For adults with schizophrenia who continue to have symptoms despite treatment with the antipsychotic drug clozapine, adding amisulpride (another antipsychotic) was not shown to improve their chance of responding.
It still remains unclear whether psychotic features increase the risk of suicidal attempts in major depressive disorder. Thus, we attempted, through a systematic review coupled with a meta-analysis, to elucidate further whether unipolar psychotic depression (PMD) compared to non-PMD presents higher levels of suicidal attempts.To read the full article, log in using your SSSFT NHS OpenAthens details. SSOTP - You can request a copy of this article by replying to this email. Please ensure you are clear which article you are requesting.
Identification of psychotic symptoms in non-specialist settings is key to initiating timely pathways to care. A systematic review of 30 observational studies of pathways to care of first-episode psychosis showed that first contact was more usually through a physician than through emergency services. This article is aimed at generalists, primary care physicians, and hospital doctors, who play a critical role and who require a low threshold for referral for specialist assessment, sometimes before diagnosis is certain.
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A general practitioner may support four to eight patients with psychotic disorder and see one new presentation each year. Other non-specialist doctors will encounter patients presenting to an emergency department or complicating comorbid illness.
Psychosis often emerges for the first time in adolescence and young adulthood. In around four out of five patients symptoms remit, but most experience relapses and further difficulties. The first two to five years of psychosis are considered a critical period for intervening to improve long term outcome.567 The non-specialist plays a key role in early identification.
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The impact of religious/spiritual activities on clinical outcomes in patients with serious mental illnesses remains controversial, which was addressed in this international cross-sectional study. To read the full article, log in using your SSSFT NHS OpenAthens details. SSOTP - You can request a copy of this article by replying to this email. Please ensure you are clear which article you are requesting.
The neurodevelopmental hypothesis of psychosis suggests that disrupted white matter (WM) maturation underlies disease onset. In this longitudinal study, we investigated WM connectivity and compared WM changes between individuals at ultra-high-risk for psychosis (UHR) and healthy controls (HCs). To read the full article, log in using your SSSFT NHS OpenAthens details. SSOTP - You can request a copy of this article by replying to this email. Please ensure you are clear which article you are requesting.
Letter. SSSFT staff can use the OVID link, or you can request a copy of this article by replying to this email. Please ensure you are clear which article you are requesting.
Letter. SSSFT staff can use the OVID link, or you can request a copy of this article by replying to this email. Please ensure you are clear which article you are requesting.
Letter. SSSFT staff can use the OVID link, or you can request a copy of this article by replying to this email. Please ensure you are clear which article you are requesting.
Although the negative consequences associated with first-episode psychosis (FEP) have been well investigated, relatively less is known about positive changes that people may experience after FEP. Existing literature is disparate and in need of synthesis. Such a synthesis can inform the design of mental health services that foster strengths, hope, and optimism. The objective of this study was to synthesize the literature on how positive change is experienced after FEP by affected persons and their families and friends and to delineate the individual, social, and structural factors facilitating positive change. Login at top right hand side of page using your SSSFT NHS OpenAthens for full text. SSOTP- Please contact the library to receive a copy of this article - http://bit.ly/1Xyazai
Editorial. Anxiety and affective symptoms are prominent features of schizophrenia which are often present in the prodromal phase of the illness and preceding psychotic relapses. A number of studies suggest that genetic risk for the disorder may be associated with increased anxiety long before the onset of psychotic symptoms. Targeting anxiety symptoms may represent an important strategy for primary and secondary prevention in schizophrenia. You can request a copy of this article by replying to this email. Please ensure you are clear which article you are requesting.
Schizophrenia has a 1% prevalence in the population; 30% of these patients are treatment refractory. Clozapine is the only drug licensed to treat treatment refractory psychosis, but concerns about potential adverse effects result in only a proportion of eligible patients being treated. Although a well-documented neutropenia risk is mitigated by routine blood testing, cardiac toxicity is a commonly cited reason to discontinue clozapine treatment. However, there is little data on the real-life cardiac outcomes in those receiving clozapine treatment. SSSFT staff can use the OVID link, or you can request a copy of this article by replying to this email. Please ensure you are clear which article you are requesting.
Long-acting injectable antipsychotics (LAI) can optimize adherence for high-risk serious mental illness (SMI). This customized adherence-enhancement approach delivered by social worker interventionists was combined with LAI (CAE-L) of paliperidone palmitate for homeless, poorly adherent individuals with SMI. SSSFT staff can use the OVID link, or you can request a copy of this article by replying to this email. Please ensure you are clear which article you are requesting.
Accumulating evidence suggests an involvement of oxidative stress in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. This offers a hypothesis-derived therapeutic approach to hinder oxidative damage and its clinical sequelae. α-Lipoic acid (ALA) is a powerful natural antioxidant indicated to treat diabetic neuropathy. SSSFT staff can use the OVID link, or you can request a copy of this article by replying to this email. Please ensure you are clear which article you are requesting.
Co-occurring schizophrenia spectrum disorder and International Statistical Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision cocaine dependence present a particularly destructive constellation that is often difficult to treat. Both conditions raise dopamine transmission effects in the brain. Traditional neuroleptics block dopamine receptors, whereas aripiprazole modulates dopamine activity as an agonist/antagonist. We tested whether dopamine modulation is superior to dopamine blocking in dual-diagnosis patients. SSSFT staff can use the OVID link, or you can request a copy of this article by replying to this email. Please ensure you are clear which article you are requesting.
Cognitive deficits are prevalent in people with schizophrenia and associated with functional impairments. In addition to antipsychotics, pharmacotherapy in schizophrenia often includes other psychotropics, and some of these agents possess anticholinergic properties, which may impair cognition. The objective of this study was to explore the association between medication anticholinergic burden and cognition in schizophrenia. SSSFT staff can use the OVID link, or you can request a copy of this article by replying to this email. Please ensure you are clear which article you are requesting.