Behavioral changes after traumatic brain injury are often mistaken for primary psychiatric illness. Dr. James Kelly explains how frontal lobe injury drives disinhibition and impulsivity, why sleep is central to recovery, and how clinicians can distinguish neurologic from psychiatric symptoms on the inpatient unit.
You’ve diagnosed catatonia, but what's driving it? Dr. Fernando Espí Forcén discusses when to suspect an underlying medical cause, why delirium and seizure history complicate the picture, and how lorazepam response and antipsychotic use differ between psychiatric and medical catatonia in hospitalized patients.
Could excessive water intake be driving your patient's confusion? Psychogenic polydipsia can mimic psychiatric decompensation and lead to dangerous hyponatremia. This article reviews recognition, acute management, and pharmacologic options for recurrent cases on the inpatient unit.
Prior estimates put antidepressant discontinuation symptom rates as high as 56%. A rigorous meta-analysis of nearly 21,000 patients arrives at a very different number—and it changes how clinicians should counsel patients before tapering.
After two failed antidepressants, remission odds drop below 15%. Is there a better next step than another medication trial? A Dutch RCT pits rTMS head-to-head against pharmacologic switching in treatment-resistant depression.
Valproic acid remains one of psychiatry's most teratogenic drugs. Have years of FDA warnings changed contraceptive and prescribing patterns among women of childbearing age? A large cohort study offers a sobering answer.
Dr. Hendrick is a clinical professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and is the director of inpatient psychiatry at Olive View—UCLA Medical Center, where she carries a caseload of patients and provides teaching and supervision for medical students and psychiatry residents. After completing medical school and psychiatric residency at UCLA, she spent several years working as a principal investigator and co-investigator on N.I.M.H. funded research studies. She has authored or co-authored over 75 research papers, editorials, books and other publications. She has a long-standing interest in the needs of severely mentally ill patients from underserved populations and has worked in community mental health settings her entire career.
