Dr. Patrick Gariety shares his experiences as a treatment clinician working in a facility with about 300 psychiatric patients, staffed with five psychiatrists and eight psychologists. The psychiatric population was extremely mixed, with most of the patients suffering from some form of chronic mental illness, and/or severe personality disorders.

Second-generation antipsychotics (SGA) are used for a variety of psychiatric conditions, but even though they’ve been around for 20 years, we know little about what impact they have on the developing fetus. These medications are widely considered to be relatively safe during pregnancy, but this assumption is based on scant evidence. In this paper, researchers tapped into the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) National Pregnancy Registry of Atypical Antipsychotics and reported some reassuring results.

Prescribing two antipsychotics to a single patient is a common practice in clinical settings. Increasingly, we are being scolded for this practice. If possible, stick with a single antipsychotic. But if the situation seems to call for polypharmacy, here are some factors to guide your decision-making.

On September 17, the FDA approved cariprazine (Vraylar) for the treatment of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. There’s already some buzz about whether this medication has advantages over other atypicals for treating negative symptoms of schizophrenia.

Nearly one in three foster children have significant psychiatric problems during their time in foster care—especially those related to trauma and neglect that brought them into the system. This article is a brief primer on how foster care works, and how psychiatrists get involved.

In response to the rising use of psychotropic medications in Medicaid and foster care populations, some states, including California, have implemented specific guidelines. This article covers those guidelines with case examples.

Patients with schizophrenia often stop taking their medications, so long-acting injectable antipsychotics (LAIs) are potentially good ways to make sure these patients have some medication in their systems over the long term.

For better or worse, we are prescribing atypical antipsychotics more frequently in children. Some of this is due to new FDA indications for kids (autism, psychotic disorders, and bipolar disorder), but much of the increase is driven by off-label use (Tourette’s, ADHD, OCD, depression, conduct disorder and impulse control disorders).

In March 2015, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Actavis’ asenapine (Saphris) for the acute treatment of manic or mixed episodes associated with bipolar disorder in kids between 10 and 17 years.

With nine other atypical antipsychotics already on the market (some of which are available as generics), did we really need another one? Given the pesky side effects of antipsychotics, maybe we did. Let’s take a look at what we know so far about Latuda (lurasidone) in an effort to figure out how to incorporate it into our clinical toolbox. Latuda was first approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in schizophrenia in late 2010.