Remote consultations in the era of COVID-19 pandemic: Preliminary experience in a regional Australian public acute mental health care setting.

In the wake of the recent pandemic of Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), with confirmed cases having crossed 750,000, health systems across the world are getting overwhelmed; making it strenuous to maintain essential health services. Several changes were implemented in our acute mental health care service using a collaborative approach to maintain a balance between preventive measures to 'flatten the curve' and to provide care to those who were in need. Mode of service delivery was changed predominantly to tele-medicine, amongst others.

Negative symptoms in schizophrenia.

The negative symptoms have been described in association with schizophrenia since the early days of it being recognized as an entity. However, their elusive nature kept them unacknowledged until there was a revival of interest in them following the development of specific quantifying measures. Over the past three decades, there has been a tremendous surge in research on their types, measurements, status in the present classificatory system, and their implications.

Comparing mirror neuron system activity between sporadic and familial cases of schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia is a heterogenous disorder, and has often been subtyped on the basis of family history of psychotic disorders. Compared to those without, a positive family history is associated with an earlier age of onset, greater structural brain abnormalities and poorer clinical course. Given recent emphasis on mirror neuron system (MNS) in attempting to explain psychopathology in schizophrenia; present analysis tried to tease out differences in MNS functioning between these two groups.

Carbamazepine in Treatment of Visual Hallucinations: A Case of Chronic Hallucinatory Psychosis.

Visual hallucinations are commonly present in various neurological and psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia and other hallucinatory psychosis. Current conceptualization of hallucinations assume pattern completion model of thalamus to be responsible for the origin of this type of the perceptual abnormality and proposes that central inhibition of such circuits may treat hallucinations. We present a case of chronic hallucinatory psychosis with significantly distressing visual hallucinations, resistant to antipsychotics, which successfully responded to carbamazepine.

Psychiatry at undergraduate level in India: What is needed?

Present day health-care philosophy strongly favors an increased attention to mental health related issues. However, the lack of an adequate number of trained specialists in India in this field makes it imperative that the burden is shared by general practitioners at large. But our current medical education system may not be equipped enough to prepare them for the task.

Tourette syndrome and bipolar disorder: unique problems with pediatric comorbidity.

Tourette syndrome and bipolar disorder are frequent comorbidities in pediatric age group. They provide a clinician with certain unique challenges. While on one hand the tics mask manifestation of affective symptomatology, the latter makes it difficult to elicit tics with certainty.

Risperidone-induced mania: An emergent complication of treatment.

The occurrence of manic/hypomanic switch in patients being treated with risperidone has been reported by various authors, and they have described a variety of strategies for their management. In this report, we describe two cases of induction of elevated mood symptoms in patients treated with risperidone. We propose that the emergence of these symptoms may be a complication of treatment with this drug in susceptible individuals, of which the clinicians should be aware, mainly in those diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Psychiatry in 21(st) century: The road ahead.

In spite of becoming more humane in its approach with improvements in understanding of mental illnesses over last century, psychiatry still has a long way to go. At this point in time, on one hand the world faces issues like terrorism, wars and global warming; while on the other it is witnessing economic and gender empowerment like never before. With technology providing us with immense opportunities to advance care for the mentally ill, we are closer than ever to finding the holy-grail of psychiatry, and overcoming daunting challenges.