Tuesday, August 12, 2003

Anxiety Disorders
Article in WebMD Scientific American Medicine at Medscape - "Up to 10% of the population experience sporadic panic attacks. These attacks are characterized by sudden onset and rapid escalation of somatic symptoms referable to the autonomic nervous system (e.g., chest pain, shortness of breath, heart palpitations, and dizziness) along with fear or apprehension. Panic attack is diagnosed when at least four of 13 symptomatic criteria occur unexpectedly and peak within 10 minutes .... Panic disorder is more common in women and has an average-age-group onset of early adulthood." [Viewing Medscape resources requires registration, which is free].  
  

Schizophrenia could cause patients to forget their medication
BioMed Central press release at EurekAlert - "Patients with schizophrenia must take medication regularly to reduce their risk of relapse. But the disease impairs memory, according to an article published in BMC Psychiatry, meaning these patients may have difficulty in remembering to take their tablets. Habitual tasks, like taking medicine every few hours, rely on 'prospective memory'. This type of memory, which appears to be impaired by schizophrenia, enables you to remember that you have to do something in the future, without being prompted. Brita Elvevåg, from the Clinical Brain Disorders Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health and her colleagues who carried out the research, wrote: 'To our knowledge this is the first study to show that schizophrenia is associated with an overall impairment in habitual prospective memory performance.'"