SAFEvR MentalVeRse.app: Development of a Free Immersive Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy for Acrophobia and Claustrophobia.

Specific phobias impact over 400 million people worldwide. Digitalizing mental health could alleviate the burden. Still, although the corporate-driven Metaverse is expanding rapidly, there needs to be more momentum in harnessing virtual reality exposure therapy uptake.

Benzodiazepines and Mood Stabilizers in Schizophrenia Patients Treated with Oral versus Long-Acting Injectable Antipsychotics-An Observational Study.

Schizophrenia is a chronic, invalidating, and polymorphic disease, characterized by relapses and remission periods. The main treatment option in schizophrenia are antipsychotics, administered as an oral or as a long-acting injectable (LAI) formulation. Although international guidelines rarely recommend it, mood stabilizers (MS) and/or benzodiazepines (BZD) are frequently prescribed as adjunctive therapy in schizophrenia patients for various reasons.

COVID-19 Pandemic Affects Children's Education but Opens up a New Learning System in a Romanian Rural Area.

(1) Background: In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the educational system in Romania faced major challenges. Online knowledge development was necessary and mandatory during this time; (2) Methods: our study included a group of 140 preadolescents and used a phenomenology qualitative method to investigate if the novel online teaching, implemented in a hurry during the pandemic without any previous teacher training, managed to replace face-to-face teaching; (3) Results: The students have expressed their joy for online courses, as long as they are kept interactive. Even though they feel nervous and worried when it comes to evaluation, the students claim they feel capable to learn all of the learning materials.

Controversial Link between Cannabis and Anticancer Treatments-Where Are We and Where Are We Going? A Systematic Review of the Literature.

Background And Objectives: Cannabinoids are currently used in cancer patients primarily for their pain-relieving and antiemetic properties. The aim of our review was to synthesize all available data of studies evaluating the therapeutic efficacy of cannabis in combination with oncological treatments in cancer patients and to explore ongoing studies with different goals and medical areas registered in the field of oncology worldwide.

Materials And Methods: This study was performed in accordance with the PRISMA guidelines.

Why Are Patients Unhappy with Their Healthcare? A Romanian Physicians' Perspective.

Background: Medical professional liability complaints are not triggered by a single factor, but rather by multiple factors, each having more or less implications, such as the characteristics of the physician, the medical system, the patients, the complexity of their pathology, and the inherent limits of medicine. Knowledge about the factors that initiate the complaint procedure is essential to identify the targeted measures to limit their prevalence and impact. The purpose of this study was to identify the reasons behind the malpractice complaints and the factors that may influence the initiation of complaints by the patients.

State-of-the-Art Review on Immersive Virtual Reality Interventions for Colonoscopy-Induced Anxiety and Pain.

Background: Colonoscopy related fear impairs the current gold standard screening of colorectal cancer. Compared to other minimally invasive procedures for cancer screening, colonoscopy-induced anxiety exceeds the procedure through bowel preparation. Immersive virtual reality's (iVR) role in alleviating the complex stress-pain relationship encountered during medical procedures is directly proportional to the rising affordability of state-of-the-art Head-Mounted-Displays (HMDs).

Religious Characteristics of Romanian Physicians: Towards an Integrative Support of Religious Psychiatric Patients.

Background: The growing closeness between psychiatry and theology may impact positively the healthcare of the religious psychiatric patients. However, some significant divergences regarding the health care religious methods and the concept and believe in the demonic possession of psychiatric patients continue to shape the relationships between these professionals. While the religions generally admit the demonic or spirit possession as real, the current views of physicians and psychiatric patients are just taken for granted and therefore demands new investigations.

Physiopathological and therapeutical correlations in alcohol dependence.

No doubt, alcoholism represents nowadays the toxicomany with the highest expansion rate among all population groups, being recognized by the specialists from the medical, social, economic and legal field as a true "toxic pandemy". Researchers consider ethanol, this small but highly aggressive molecule, to have supremacy if we were to consider the number of pages dedicated to it worldwide on daily bases, in the medical or any other specialty literature. Nonetheless, the large volume of data regarding ethanol toxicity does not seen to simplify things, on the contrary it points out new information about the its negative effects on human body.

[Effect of memantine treatment on patients with moderate-to-severe Alzheimer's disease treated with donepezil].

Objective: Investigating the behavioral and cognitive effect of memantine in moderate to severe patients with Alzheimer's disease receiving donepezil.

Material And Method: 43 patients were enrolled in this prospective, randomized, parallel group study. There were no significant imbalances between the treatment groups in demographic and baseline clinical characteristics.

Pathways to psychiatric care in Eastern Europe.

Background: There has been almost no research into mental health services in Eastern Europe. A pathways study is a quick and useful starting point, requiring few resources.

Aims: To improve understanding of prior care-seeking and treatment of new patients seen at mental health services.