Der Nervenarzt
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While the international literature documents a high prevalence of psychiatric disorders in prisoners, German studies in this field are rare. The base of knowledge is even worse with regard to female prisoners. The purpose of this study was to investigate DSM-IV axis I and II psychiatric disorders and current psychopathology and to estimate treatment needs in prisoners. ⋯ These results indicate that the proportion of mentally ill persons in prisons is substantially higher than in specialized hospitals for mentally ill criminals. More treatment options are urgently needed than has been realized up to now.
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Pregnancy and family planning issues are prominent concerns in the medical care of multiple sclerosis patients, since the disease onset often coincides with a period of life that is decisive in this regard. Multiple sclerosis is a chronic disorder with an unpredictable course and is widely treated with long-term immunomodulatory agents, raising questions regarding the complications and effects of these therapies on pregnancy. This paper gives an overview of the relevant literature and provides a basis for individual counselling of this group of multiple sclerosis patients.
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In order to evaluate risk assessment instruments for sex offenders in Germany, we compared the predictive validity of the Static-99, HCR-20, SVR-20, and PCL-R scales for 134 sex offenders. The mean follow-up time was 9 years (range 1-340 months), using the first entry into the National Register of Criminal Convictions as endpoint variable. For the estimate of predictive power, the area under the curve (AUC) of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was calculated. ⋯ Kaplan-Meier survival analyses yielded highly a significant correlation to recidivism time point for two Static-99 and SVR-20 risk categories. Higher-risk categories were related to earlier recidivism. However, relying on the Static-99 and SVR-20 alone showed false positive results: for up to two out of three sex offenders, they predicted recidivism which did not occur.
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[Implementation of a competency-based graduate medical education program in a neurology department].
Competency-based programs have long been the basis of graduate medical education in British and North America. Such formally defined program structures are lacking in German graduate medical education. ⋯ The competency-based program presented, which is compatible with many quality management systems, offers management and assessment tools that will make for more satisfactory postgraduate medical education.
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Prolongation of myocardial repolarisation, i.e. lengthening of the QT interval on surface electrocardiogram, has been recognised as a side effect of many drugs, including antipsychotics. In predisposed individuals, abnormal excessive QT prolongation and severe ventricular arrhythmias (the ventricular tachycardia type 'torsade de pointes', or TdP) may occur. In almost all cases, additional factors are present that increase the propensity of patients to develop TdP, such as serum hypokalemia, the combination of drugs prolonging repolarisation, overdosing, intoxication, and factors interfering with drug metabolism and excretion. ⋯ Physicians prescribing physicians these drugs must be aware that they can induce proarrhythmia in individual cases. They should also be aware of the circumstances which are necessary for abnormal QT prolongation and TdP to develop. Patients should be monitored with regard to these risk factors before and during drug treatment.