Service dogs, psychiatric hospitalization, and the ADA.

A service dog is defined as "any dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability, including a physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual, or other mental disability." Some psychiatric patients may depend on a service dog for day-to-day functioning. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) established certain rights and responsibilities for individuals with disabilities and health care providers.

Psychiatric services: experience, perceptions, and needs of nursing facility multidisciplinary leaders.

Objectives: To identify the experience and perceptions of multidisciplinary nursing facility leaders regarding need for psychiatric services in residents of long-term care.

Design: Cross-sectional study.

Setting: Nursing facilities in Hawaii.

Alternative formulations, delivery methods, and administration options for psychotropic medications in elderly patients with behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia.

Objective: The purpose of this paper was to review alternative formulations, delivery methods, and administration options for psychotropic medications in elderly patients with behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD).

Methods: A MEDLINE search was conducted initially in December 2008 and was updated in September 2009, including the search terms pharmacologic treatment and dementia, behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia, alternative psychotropic medication formulations, alternative dosing methods of medication, drug delivery options, antidepressants and dementia, anxiolytics and dementia, antipsychotics and dementia, mood stabilizers and dementia, cognitive enhancers and dementia, medications and enteral feeding tubes, and hiding medication. Studies were limited to English-language articles dated from 1950 to 2009.

Hospital psychiatric interventions and its positive effect on disposition of non-acute, long-term-care waitlisted patients: a case series.

Psychiatric interventions in hospital patients have been shown effective in reducing length of stay and costs. Its effectiveness and benefits in regard to the growing problem of disposition of non-acute, long-term-care, waitlisted hospital patients have not been characterized or described in the literature. The authors present several cases of waitlisted patients that demonstrate direct and indirect psychiatric interventions can play a significant role overcoming barriers and contributing to timely and appropriate disposition of these patients.

A descriptive study of a unique multi-ethnic consultation-liaison psychiatry service in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Objective: To provide a descriptive characterization of the CL Psychiatry service at a major medical center in Honolulu, Hawaii. We hypothesized differing demographic trends than seen nationally and internationally, an increasing prevalence of elderly and substance abusing patients, and increasing consultation requests related to these issues.

Methods: Retrospective data was gathered from 180 randomly selected patient records, identified as having a request for inpatient psychiatric consultation on the medical-surgical floors during identical 3-month periods in 2000 and 2005.