An Occupation-Based Lifestyle Lecture Intervention as Part of Inpatient Addiction Recovery Treatment: Exploring Occupational Performance, Balance and Personal Recovery.

Introduction: Substance use disorders (SUDs) and addictive behaviours are growing problems which negatively impact health and wellbeing. Occupational therapy can support recovery by facilitating engagement in everyday activities that promote health. To date, the inclusion of occupational therapy in addiction recovery is limited and the evidence base for occupation-focused interventions is lacking.

Differential diagnosis and comorbidity of ADHD and anxiety in adults.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to examine symptom profiles of people diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and/or anxiety (ANX) in order to determine the validity of widely used ADHD and ANX rating scales for differential diagnostic use and to develop modified measures that take symptom overlap into account.

Design: A cross-sectional design was used to assess differences in rating scale scores between clinical (n = 52) and control (n = 74) samples as well as differences among subgroups of the clinical sample (22 ADHD; 16 ADHD + ANX; 14 ANX).

Method: Participants completed an online questionnaire where they responded to the Conners Adult ADHD Rating Scale (CAARS; Conners, Erhardt, & Sparrow, ) and State Trait Anxiety Inventory scales (STAI; Spielberger, Gorsuch, Lushene, Vagg, & Jacobs, ).

Corticotropin-releasing hormone and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis in psychiatric disease.

Since the 1960s, both corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis have been studied in detail across a range of psychiatric illnesses, leading to important contributions to our knowledge in this area. This research arose from the conceptualization of depression, in particular, as a stress-related disorder. However, stress is now regarded as an integral component of psychiatric illnesses in general, whether as an environmental trigger or in the initial pathogenesis, and there is evidence of altered HPA axis function across a range of mental disorders.

A review of ketamine in affective disorders: current evidence of clinical efficacy, limitations of use and pre-clinical evidence on proposed mechanisms of action.

Introduction: Recent research has seen low-dose ketamine emerge as a novel, rapid-acting antidepressant. Ketamine, an N-methy-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist, leads to effects on the glutamatergic system and abnormalities in this neurotransmittor system are present in depression. This article aims to (1) review the clinical literature on low-dose ketamine as a rapid-acting antidepressant in affective disorders, (2) provide a critical overview of the limitations of ketamine and research attempts to overcome these (3) discuss the proposed mechanisms of action of ketamine and (4) point towards future research directions.

Effects of group metacognitive training (MCT) on mental capacity and functioning in patients with psychosis in a secure forensic psychiatric hospital: a prospective-cohort waiting list controlled study.

Background: Metacognitive Training (MCT) is a manualised cognitive intervention for psychosis aimed at transferring knowledge of cognitive biases and providing corrective experiences. The aim of MCT is to facilitate symptom reduction and protect against relapse. In a naturalistic audit of clinical effectiveness we examined what effect group MCT has on mental capacity, symptoms of psychosis and global function in patients with a psychotic illness, when compared with a waiting list comparison group.

An unusual cause of autobiographical memory loss.

We describe an unusual cause of autobiographical memory loss in a 55 year old man who presented with prominent memory loss for significant events in his life over a period of five years with evidence of patchy memory loss for events prior to this. It was associated with emotional lability and was complicated by a number of tragic events in his life in the previous four years. In addition there were a number of brief episodes (< 30 mins) where he would transiently lose his memory for events including for hours, days or months prior to the event.

Quality of education at multidisciplinary case conferences in psychiatry.

Purpose: A large Dublin-based teaching hospital facilitates a weekly Psychiatric Case Presentation meeting, which is relatively unique in medicine and even in psychiatry, in that there is a large variety of attendees from various multidisciplinary groups: consultant psychiatrists, psychiatric trainees, nurses, psychologists and psychoanalytic psychotherapists, occupational therapists, social workers and pastoral care staff. The aim of this audit is to assess the quality of education for members of different disciplines at these meetings, and to highlight the differing learning needs of the attendees.

Design/methodology/approach: Group-structured assessments and Likert scale questionnaires were used to identify what attendees thought were educational and what needed to be improved.

A review of the role of serotonin receptors in psychiatric disorders.

Serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) mediates a wide variety of physiological functions by activating multiple receptors, and abnormalities of these receptor systems has been implicated in many psychiatric disorders including anxiety, depression, psychosis, migraine, disorders of sexual functioning, sleep, cognition, and feeding. Many of the currently used treatments for these disorders act by affecting the serotonergic system. Observation of serotonin receptor alterations, before and following effective treatments, may yield important insights into the aetiology of these psychiatric disorders and may ultimately lead to more selective and effective therapies.