Is the Evidence Strong Enough to Warrant Long-Term Antipsychotic Use in Compulsory Outpatient Treatment?

Debate surrounding assisted outpatient treatment has mostly focused on issues of due process, cost-effectiveness, and efficacy as measured by readmission and incarceration rates. Less attention has been paid to whether long-term use of antipsychotic treatment is supported by sufficient evidence to warrant its compulsory use in assisted outpatient treatment programs. The authors examine the rationale and evidence for long-term use of antipsychotics, noting the pervasive belief within the psychiatric community that psychotic illness, especially schizophrenia, requires lifelong medication.

The value and underutilization of simple reading glasses in geropsychiatry inpatient settings.

For almost everyone, the need for reading glasses is an inevitable part of the second half of life. Forgetting one's reading glasses at a restaurant can be a disturbing reminder of one's dependence on them. For geriatric inpatients, however, the value of reading glasses in improving quality of life and preventing delirium may be overlooked.

A case of severe airbag related ocular alkali injury.

While airbags have saved many lives and are clearly beneficial overall, sodium hydroxide (NaOH) powder produced by the inflation reaction can cause significant alkali ocular injury if not irrigated promptly. Here we report a case of severe airbag related ocular alkali injury as a way to bring attention to the need for prompt ocular irrigation following motor vehicle accidents (MVA) with airbag deployment. A 47-year-old man was involved in a MVA with airbag deployment in a rural setting.

Survey on Visual Impairment and Refractive Errors on Ta'u Island, American Samoa.

Purpose: To assess the prevalence of presenting visual impairment and refractive errors on the isolated island of Ta'u, American Samoa.

Methods: Presenting visual acuity and refractive errors of 124 adults over 40 years of age (55 male and 69 female) were measured using the Snellen chart and an autorefractometer. This sample represented over 50% of the island's eligible population.

Evidence for a continuing gap in rural/urban adult obesity in the Samoan archipelago.

Significant differences in adult obesity prevalence exist between rural and urban settings throughout the world. Here, we estimate and evaluate the prevalence of adult obesity in rural Independent Samoa, rural American Samoa, and urban American Samoa in 2009. Volunteers over the age of 40 years were weighed and measured by convenience sampling in rural Independent Samoa (N = 85), rural American Samoa (N = 124), and urban American Samoa (N = 95) Mean BMI increased from rural Independent Samoa (32.

Alcohol consumption and gender in rural Samoa.

Introduction And Aims: There are significant gender differences in alcohol consumption throughout the world. Here we report the results of an alcohol consumption survey on the rural island of Savaii, in the Pacific nation of Samoa.

Design And Methods: Eleven villages were selected for sampling using a randomized stratified cluster sampling methodology.