After reading these articles, you should be able to…

The post-test for this issue is available for one year after the publication date to subscribers only. By successfully completing the test you will be awarded a certificate for 1 CME Credit.

For this month’s issue, I asked two experts in family and couples therapy to remind us of how crucial it is to communicate with family members of patients. In the rush of a clinical day, it’s often easiest to simply deal with whomever shows up to the appointment—typically just the patient.

Involving families is a very important part of treating your patients. When the family or spouse is included with the patient in the assessment, decision-making, and treatment planning, the patient’s adherence to treatment improves regardless of diagnosis.

Alison Heru, MD, gives the following additional advice for conducting effective family meetings.

If you want to comprehensively understand your patients and modify variables that might impact treatment and outcome, it’s important to understand families. There has been a lot of research showing that the family environment can have a significant influence on the course of an illness, either in a protective or risk-inducing way.

Treatment-resistant depression (TRD) is typically defined as a major depression that fails to remit after at least 2 trials of 2 different classes of antidepressants. Other than electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), there remain few evidence-based biological treatment options for TRD.

The mainstay of current treatment for panic disorder involves SSRIs and psychotherapy, specifically either cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or exposure with response prevention (ERP) therapy. Several studies have evaluated whether adding DCS to ERP therapy might enhance the effectiveness of the therapy, but there have been mixed results.

The post-test for this issue is available for one year after the publication date to subscribers only. By successfully completing the test you will be awarded a certificate for 2 CME credits.