Category Archives: News & updates

The “bottom line” of diagnosis If your depressions are complicated; if you have mood swings, but not “mania”, you can still be “bipolar enough” to need a treatment that’s more like the treatments we use in more easily recognized Bipolar … Continue reading →

Medicaid Information by Topic: Eligibility Medicaid and CHIP provide health coverage to nearly 60 million Americans, including children, pregnant women, parents, seniors and individuals with disabilities. In order to participate in Medicaid, Federal law requires States to cover certain population … Continue reading →

2014 Drug Safety Communications FDA Drug Safety Communication: FDA reporting mental health drug ziprasidone (Geodon) associated with rare but potentially fatal skin reactions 12/11/2014 FDA Drug Safety Communication: FDA warns about case of rare brain infection PML with MS drug … Continue reading →

Mental Health by the Numbers: Prevalence of Mental Illness Approximately 1 in 5 adults in the U.S.—43.7 million, or 18.6%—experiences mental illness in a given year.1 Approximately 1 in 25 adults in the U.S.—13.6 million, or 4.1%—experiences a serious mental … Continue reading →

Bipolar disorder is a clinically challenging condition. In addition to the multiple mood states that patients can experience, the illness is frequently associated with multiple comorbid medical and psychiatric conditions. Bipolar disorder can best be understood as a family of … Continue reading →

Quite reasonably, patients with bipolar disorder want treatment that provides sustained relief from their illness without incurring serious side-effects. Functionally, this translates to the resumption of purpose and enjoyment. But of the numerous drugs available for the management of bipolar … Continue reading →

Emil Kraepelin’s demarcation between dementia praecox and manic depressive illness defined affective disorder as a remitting and recurring disease. He considered that only long-term outcome was useful in assessing accuracy of diagnosis and treatment response in patients.1 The more recent interest … Continue reading →

Limitation of access to lethal methods used for suicide—so-called means restriction—is an important population strategy for suicide prevention. Many empirical studies have shown that such means restriction is effective. Although some individuals might seek other methods, many do not; when … Continue reading →

Astute readers of obituaries know that “died unexpectedly” is a common euphemism for “died by suicide”. The family and friends of suicide victims are often reluctant to openly discuss the cause of death because of profound sadness, sense of privacy, … Continue reading →