Agitation is common in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and while antipsychotics are frequently given for agitation, they can also increase risk for cardiac and cerebrovascular events. What to do? A group of researchers recently investigated the possibility that an antidepressant, citalopram (Celexa), may be an alternative choice.

All antidepressants have the potential to cause physical adverse effects, such as dry mouth, drowsiness, and dizziness. But patients often report psychological and interpersonal effects, too, and the fear of these adverse reactions sometimes leads patients to refuse these drugs. How common are non-physical side effects, such as apathy and feelings of detachment?

A recent study shows that even though 83% of people who commit suicide have had healthcare services in the year before their deaths, only about half of these had a mental health diagnosis.

The Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention has released the details of a research plan aimed at reducing suicides in the US by 20% in five years. The public/private partnership (which works through grants from Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA] and the Department of Health and Human Services [HHS]) examined the research that shows the most promise in reducing suicides and identified where gaps in current suicide research exist.

After reading these articles, you should be able to…

We’re all aware that neuroleptics and other dopamine-receptor blocking agents (DRBAs) can cause a variety of movement disorders, often referred to as extrapyramidal syndromes (EPS).

David Mintz, MD, explains how psychodynamic psychopharmacology considers patients’ individuality in making treatment decisions.

A major obstacle in the prevention of depression is the lack of a predictive biomarker in individuals who later develop the disorder. British researchers have shown that the combination of a physiological biomarker—salivary cortisol—and the presence of depressive symptoms might be used to predict the development of major depression in adolescents.

A team of scientists from the University of Michigan Medical School studied a line of stem cells derived from patients with bipolar disorder to determine what, if any, differences could be found between these and the cells of people without the disorder.

After reading these articles, you should be able to…