We know that headaches are common in the general population, but they are particularly common among patients with psychiatric problems. According to one review, (Pompili M et al., J Headache Pain 2009; 10(4):283-290) patients with depression have a 46% lifetime prevalence of migraine, while bipolar patients have a 51% prevalence. Patients with migraines have triple the risk of developing depression than patients without migraines.

While tremor is traditionally thought of as a neurological issue, the symptom pops up often in psychiatric practice, and some basic knowledge of its diagnosis and treatment comes in handy.

It has long been thought that one’s genetic makeup combines with stressors to cause depression, but for many years there was little data to support this hypothesis.

Drug samples are a staple of pharmaceutical marketing. The drug industry argues, quite logically, that samples are useful to treat patients who lack the funds to purchase medications. Yet some reformers have called for drug samples to be banned, an idea that has received a decidedly mixed reception.

Trichotillomania (TTM) is an impulse control disorder in which patients feel that they can relieve tension by pulling out hair from different parts of their bodies. While sharing some features with obsessive compulsive disorder, DSM-IV-TR does not officially classify it as a type of OCD.

Dr. Price, for most of your career, you’ve worked closely with psychiatrists in treating patients with neuropsychiatric disease. I thought we might start by discussing how psychiatrists might bring more neurological thinking into their evaluations. When should psychiatrists start thinking neurologically?

After reading these articles, you should be able to…

It’s easy to order labs—it’s the interpretation that’s difficult. In this article, we’ll review some of the more common labs you are likely to order as psychiatrists and give you some tips on interpreting them, as well as discussing what (if anything) you should do when a lab is abnormal.

Having a heart attack is depressing. Systematic reviews have found that depression increases the risk of future development of heart disease by 64% (Wulsin et al., Psychsom Med 2003;65: 201-210). But what do these facts mean in the terms of treatment?

Dr. Yohanan, as an internist specializing in geriatric medicine, you see many patients with “metabolic syndrome.” But there is a great deal of confusion out there as to what metabolic syndrome actually is, and whether that term remains useful.