Meta-analytic evidence on the efficacy of hypnosis for mental and somatic health issues: a 20-year perspective.

Introduction: Documented use and investigation of hypnosis spans centuries and its therapeutic use has received endorsement by multiple medical associations. We conducted a comprehensive overview of meta-analyses examining the efficacy of hypnosis to provide a foundational understanding of hypnosis in evidence-based healthcare, insight into the safety of hypnosis interventions, and identification of gaps in the current research literature.

Methods: In our systematic review, meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials on the efficacy of hypnosis in patients with mental or somatic health problems compared to any control condition published after the year 2000 were included.

ECT in the presence of increased intracranial pressure and respiratory failure: case report.

Despite the safety of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in the presence of such potentially dangerous CNS disorders as CNS infections, brain tumor, and normal pressure hydrocephalus, increased intracranial pressure is still considered an absolute contraindication. In addition, although ECT has been administered to patients with pneumonia, it has never been used when respiratory failure is present. The safe and effective use of ECT in a patient in whom life-threatening refusal to cooperate with medical therapy appeared to be caused by a combination of depression and organic brain disease is reported.

A preliminary study of the relationship between preoperative depression and weight loss following surgery for morbid obesity.

Fifty-two consecutive morbidly obese patients were evaluated psychiatrically before they were scheduled to undergo gastroplasty and again an average of twenty-six months later. Ten patients did not undergo surgery; six patients who did undergo gastroplasty were unavailable for follow up. In the remaining thirty-six patients, there was a statistically significant correlation between the degree of clinically estimated preoperative depression and the percent of body weight lost following surgery.