The Journal of neuropsychiatry and clinical neurosciences
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J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci · Jan 1998
Traumatic brain injury in children and adolescents: psychiatric disorders at one year.
Factors predictive of psychiatric outcome in the second 6 months following traumatic brain injury (TBI) in 43 children and adolescents were assessed prospectively. The outcome measure was the presence of a psychiatric disorder not present before the injury ("novel"). ⋯ Severity of injury, when reclassified as severe versus mild/moderate TBI, significantly predicted novel psychiatric disorders. These data suggest that some children, identifiable through clinical assessment, are at increased risk for psychiatric disorders following TBI.
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J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci · Jan 1998
Is delirium different when it occurs in dementia? A study using the delirium rating scale.
The authors studied 61 geropsychiatric patients with delirium from a cohort of 843 consecutive admissions to a geriatric clinical research unit. A central study goal was to assess how the presence of dementia affected the presentation of delirium. Eighteen delirious (D) and 43 delirious-demented (D-D) patients were compared on the Delirium Rating Scale (DRS), Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), and EEG. ⋯ DRS items were similar in the two groups except that D-D had more cognitive impairment than D. An exploratory principal components analysis of DRS items identified two core factors. The authors conclude that the presentation of delirium in the setting of concurrent dementia is very similar to delirium without dementia, with subtle differences probably attributable to dementia.
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Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has been used to treat the psychiatric complications of Parkinson's disease. Concurrent improvement of parkinsonian motor symptoms has been noted. This retrospective study compared the outcomes of 25 patients with parkinsonism receiving ECT for psychiatric indications with outcomes of 25 patients (matched for age and gender) without neurological disease also receiving ECT for psychiatric indications. ⋯ No differences in efficacy of ECT were found between the two groups. Fourteen of the 25 patients with Parkinson's symptoms were noted to have at least transient improvement in motor function at discharge. ECT is an effective treatment for patients with parkinsonism and psychiatric comorbidity.