Current opinion in psychiatry
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Curr Opin Psychiatry · Jul 2009
ReviewMilitary deployment: the impact on children and family adjustment and the need for care.
Over a million children and their families have now experienced the stress of the deployment of a family member during the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Whereas there is an extensive clinical literature about the developmental challenges facing children and issues of family adjustment, there is a lack of systematic research. This review summarizes the findings of recent publications. ⋯ A substantial advantage of focusing on family adjustment is that it can facilitate access to mental healthcare for veterans while assisting families' positive adaptation.
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Curr Opin Psychiatry · Jul 2009
ReviewEmergent research in the cause of mental illness in women across the lifespan.
In recent years, there has been an increased appreciation of gender and sex differences in mental illness. This perspective has included attention to sex differences in neurobiology, neurochemistry, sex steroids, endocrine sex reactivity and psychosocial stressors. However, emerging research investigating gene-environment interactions presents another layer of complexity in understanding sex differences in epidemiology, clinical features and treatment of mental disorders across the lifespan. ⋯ Further research into sex-specific gene-environment interactions across the lifespan is needed with the goal of improving preventive efforts and optimizing treatment in women's mental health.
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Curr Opin Psychiatry · Mar 2009
ReviewChronic pain syndromes and their treatment by psychological interventions.
Treatment of chronic pain has become a multidisciplinary endeavour including psychological interventions. Databases for life science journals were searched for citations from 2007 and 2008 to determine the current focus of research and the state of evidence. ⋯ Regarding different pain syndromes such as chronic back pain, headache, fibromyalgia, and temporomandibular disorder, as well as gastrointestinal pain in children, psychological interventions proved their significance for the achievement of favourable treatment outcome.
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Curr Opin Psychiatry · Jan 2009
ReviewNeurosurgical treatment of mood disorders: traditional psychosurgery and the advent of deep brain stimulation.
From its peak in the 1940s and 1950s, psychosurgery (or, neurosurgery for psychiatric disorders) has had a gradual decline, with only a few centers around the world continuing with the procedure into the 1980s and 1990s. With recent developments in brain stimulation techniques, the continuing relevance of psychosurgery in the treatment of psychiatric disorders is worthy of examination. ⋯ Although ablative psychosurgery using stereotactic procedures continues to be used to a small extent, psychiatrists remain ambivalent about this procedure. The baton of psychosurgery, however, appears to have been passed on to DBS, but more data are needed on technical details and outcomes before the possible therapeutic role of DBS can be established.
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This study reviews the most recent literature about brain imaging research in anxiety disorders. There is a growing body of evidence that neuroimaging of anxiety disorders contributes to a better understanding of the neurobiology of these disorders, by identifying cerebral modifications occurring previously or subsequent to symptoms of anxiety. A systematic search of the literature (January 1978-July 2008) was performed in MEDLINE using the keywords brain imaging, anxiety disorders, posttraumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, specific phobia, social anxiety disorder, panic disorders and agoraphobia. References cited in all trials were searched iteratively to identify missing studies. Our review focused only on the last year's findings. ⋯ Brain imaging research in anxiety disorders has become increasingly important, especially in the last decade, because of the opportunity to validate neurobiological hypotheses for anxiety disorders. Thus, neuroimaging data raise the question of the neurobiological cause of anxiety disorders, opening up new reflections not only on pharmacological treatments but also on the nosology of the anxiety disorders.