Psychiatr Pol
-
Comparative Study
[Difficult asthma and gender of patients versus the presence of profound psychological trauma].
The authors examined psychiatrically a group of 97 patients suffering from severe asthma (classified according to GINA 2002). The special interest of the study was the careful analyse the time, context and content of different psychological traumas that the patients had throughout their lives. ⋯ It is highly possible, that strictly psychological and psychiatric problems affect the severity of asthma more, than it was realised before.
-
Severe asthma, a dangerous, life-threatening lung disease is often comorbid with psychiatric problems. They in turn, could be a cause of bad asthma treatment outcome. ⋯ The study revealed that 70 % of the group with severe asthma suffered also from panic disorder and 35% from depression (6% with severe depression). Depression was linked with severe panic symptoms and poor asthma treatment outcome. The more severe the course of panic disorder, the more severe depression, the more frequent use of an immature defence style, lower sense of coherence and impaired family functioning. CONCLUSION. It is highly possible, that psychiatric problems affect the severity of asthma.
-
Gabapentin is an anticonvulsant structurally similar to gamma - amino- butyric acid considered as the central acting GABA- analogue. It is used mostly as an antiepileptic agent. A constantly growing number of studies refer to its efficacy in the treatment of psychiatric disorders. ⋯ Adverse events were not observed and an addition of gabapentin into treatment brings improvement of the clinical condition. Complete amelioration was detected in 4 of the 6 patients. In one single year of observation panic disorder relapses were not observed even though there was a discontinuation of treatment. The presented case reports show a possibility of successful treatment with gabapentin in severe panic disorders.
-
In this paper, a concept has been presented stating that the process of creativity may be connected with psychopathological features such as mood disorders, mainly bipolar, and psychosis-like thought abnormalities. Biographic studies point to a more frequent occurrence of affective disorders in creative subjects and members of their families. There is also data concerning the occurrence of schizophrenia in the families of prominent persons. ⋯ The neurotransmission system mostly connected with elevated mood and psychotic thinking is the dopaminergic system, especially its mesolimbic and cortical pathways. Both neurobiological and pharmacological evidence has been accumulated for an association of these pathways with motivational, emotional and cognitive processes, and indirectly, with the processes of creativity. In recent years, a number of interesting results has also been obtained from molecular-genetic studies about genetic determinants of creativity processes in association with bipolar mood changes and psychotic conditions.