BACKGROUND Previous studies suggest that psychotropic drug changes may signal an acute period of time whereby a person is highly vulnerable to fall. It is unknown whether certain classes of psychotropic agents are less safe with respect to the acute risk of falls. Our purpose was to compare fall rates in the 7 days following a change of an antidepressant, antipsychotic, or benzodiazepine. We al...

The study of psychotropic prescribing habits of professional colleagues has become important because of the widespread and unrestricted use of these drugs and the adverse effects of their longterm use. Furthermore, the irrational use of benzodiazepines and prophylactic use of antiparkinsonian drugs is a common practice in psychiatric, teaching and general hospitals especially in developing coun...

Overview Reports of sudden deaths of children and adolescents treated with psychotropic medications have raised concerns regarding the appropriateness of this therapy, as well as the advisability of baseline and periodic electrocardiographic (ECG) monitoring of such patients.1–4 What follows is a review of the drug effects on the ECG, cardiovascular effects of the commonly used psychotropic med...

Activity Date: This activity will be available as an online learning module starting March 10, 2014, and will be available for one year. material for a maximum of 1.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™. Physicians should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.  Prescribe the appropriate psychotropic medication to treat symptoms of autism spectrum disorde...

The objective of the present study was to determine the shelf life of ready-to-eat cooked chicken breast fillets (shredded) stored in atmospheres that were modified with different concentrations of CO2 and to establish a relationship between the concentration of this gas and bacterial growth. The samples were divided into 7 groups with different packaging conditions: aerobiosis, vacuum, and 10,...

The timely article by Verdoux & Begaud ́ hopefully begins to redress the imbalance between randomised controlled trials and other ways of evaluating drug treatments. I would like to present further evidence for the ‘gap between guidelines and utilisation . . . for psychotropic medications’ (Verdoux & Begaud, 2004). ́ Using the Drug Report of the German Public Health Insurance (Schwabe & Pfaffrath...

BACKGROUND Although neurocognitive impairment has been widely reported in major depressive disorder (MDD), confounding factors, such as the effects of psychotropic medication, have rarely been controlled for. AIMS To examine neurocognitive function in medication-free patients with MDD and healthy controls. METHOD Forty-four patients meeting DSM-IV criteria for MDD, all psychotropic-medicati...

OBJECTIVE To analyze the relationship between seizure threshold (ST) and psychotropic drugs in patients treated with ECT. METHODS We examined clinical data from 43 patients. ST was titrated at each treatment session. We examined associations between ST and psychotropic drugs using multivariate correlation analyses. Data are presented as initial ST, the difference in ST between the first and 1...

The prescribing of psychotropic drugs by general practitioners was assessed by analysing the drug treatment of all patients referred from general practice to a psychiatric outpatient clinic over four years. Of the 287 patients, 220 were taking one or more of 56 different psychotropic drugs at referral, diazepam being the most common. Benzodiazepines and barbiturates had been taken for significa...

of Public Health Psychotropic drugs, which include antipsychotics, anxiolytics, hypnotics, and antidepressants, are commonly utilised among the elderly. However, drug utilisation in this population is complex due to multiple morbidities, extensive drug utilisation and an increased sensitivity to drugs. Inappropriate utilisation of drugs among the elderly is an issue of great public health impor...