Contrary to decades-old opinion, antidepressants can enhance the effectiveness of ECT for patients who have depression, while minimizing its adverse effects on cognition. (But different drugs have different effects.)
This result comes from a study at three US university hospitals. Besides analyzing the effects of drugs, the researchers also compared the efficacy of right unilateral and bilateral ECT. (The former was just as good and caused less amnesia.)
Search term: electroconvulsive therapy
RESULT: Effect of Concomitant Pharmacotherapy on Electroconvulsive Therapy Outcomes
Archives of General Psychiatry
This should inform the APA task force that is preparing new guidelines on ECT.
RESULT: Task Force Finalizing New ECT Guidelines
Psychiatric News
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SEARCH TIP: How to go straight to the journals
When you click “Search,” the initial list of results is a mix of everything: patient education information, practice guidelines, news, clinical trials, whatever turned up lately that is relevant to your search term.
To focus searches on clinical news, click immediately on the Research/Reviews article category for the latest from the major journals.
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OTHER RECENT SEARCHES
Search term: multiple sclerosis
RESULT: Neuroimaging: Evaluating the Clinical Course and Pathology of MS
Johns Hopkins Advanced Studies in Medicine
A comprehensive review from the director of the Johns Hopkins Hospital’s MS center describes new technologies that visualize nerve damage in MS, such as diffusion tensor imaging and optical coherence tomography.
RESULT: Thalamic Involvement and Its Impact on Clinical Disability in Patients With Multiple Sclerosis: A Diffusion Tensor Imaging Study at 3T
American Journal of Neuroradiology
This report from NIH shows how diffusion tensor imaging can reveal abnormalities in a thalamus that appears normal, which could prove a useful new biomarker for MS.
Search term: SSRI
RESULT: TORDIA: Unique Opportunity to Explore the Half-Life Theory
American Journal of Psychiatry
A comment on a report from the TORDIA trial of adolescents taking antidepressants suggests using that population to test the theory that drug half-life correlates with the risk of suicide ideation.
Search term: PTSD children
RESULT: Traumatic Stress in Children and Adolescents
Psychiatric Times
A recent review describes eight steps for treating PTSD among children after violent or accidental injury or sexual abuse.
NOTEWORTHY SEARCH of the week
Search term: Psychopathy and Antisocial Personality Disorder: A Case of Diagnostic Confusion
RESULT: Reality-Checking: Case in Point
Psychiatric Times
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SEARCH TIP: Finding an older article
As always, it was a good tactic to use the exact title as the search term. The title turned up among the top results—not as the article itself but as a link to other articles at the bottom of the Internet page on which the article “Reality-Checking” was posted.
That link indicates that the article “Psychopathy and Antisocial Personality Disorder” was actually published in 1996, It’s there in the original search, but far down the list, because it’s so old.
In order to find it quickly, you need to disable the automated request to put most recent articles first, and instruct SearchMedica to look instead for most relevant articles as your top priority.
Turn the publication-date priority off by un-clicking “Prioritize results by publication date” just beneath the search box.
With relevance as the only search criterion, the 1996 article appears as the first result.
Don’t forget to re-enable publication date ranking when you continue searching.
