Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum in a Patient With Schizophrenia.

The aim of this study is to report the case of a 25-year-old male with a history of schizophrenia who presented involuntarily to the psychiatric emergency department (ED) due to worsening agitation, paranoia, and disorganized behavior concerning a psychotic episode. During medical clearance to rule out acute organic causes of altered mental status prior to admission, the patient was found to have agenesis of the corpus callosum (ACC) on CT of the brain. ACC is a rare congenital disorder characterized by the partial or complete absence of the commissural pathway that connects the two cerebral hemispheres.

Mobilization of Telepsychiatry in Response to COVID-19-Moving Toward 21 Century Access to Care.

The COVID-19 pandemic threatens to disrupt the provision of mental health services. In response, policymakers, administrators, and providers have taken bold steps toward enabling telepsychiatry to bridge this sudden gap in care for our most vulnerable populations. With rapid deregulation and adoption of this modality of care, careful consideration of issues related to policy and implementation is essential to maximize its effectiveness and mitigate unintended consequences.

Efforts to reduce seclusion and restraint use in a state psychiatric hospital: a ten-year perspective.

Objective: The authors previously demonstrated an 82.3% reduction in seclusion and restraint use at an inpatient psychiatric facility, largely attributable to changes to the physical environment. This study investigated whether the reduction was sustained over time.

Excess health care service utilization and costs associated with underrecognition of psychiatric comorbidity in a medical/surgical inpatient setting.

Psychiatric comorbidity is common among chronically medically ill populations and the presence of psychiatric conditions tends to be associated with increased costs and excess utilization of general medical services. The purpose of this pilot investigation was to determine whether differences in nonpsychiatric inpatient hospitalization frequency, duration, and costs existed between patients receiving outpatient psychiatric treatment and patients without identified psychiatric problems. Length of stay and cost information for patients that had at least 1 inpatient medical/surgical hospitalization during a 6-month period was extracted from the hospital's inpatient billing database (n = 10,865).

Routine assessment of patient-reported outcomes in behavioral health: room for improvement.

Outcomes assessment has become an important tool in assessing the quality of health care. To date, most quality initiatives have focused on adverse events, clinical processes, and/or cost variables. Considerably less attention has been paid to indices of clinical improvement, especially from a patient's perspective and in behavioral health settings.

Project among African-Americans to explore risks for schizophrenia (PAARTNERS): recruitment and assessment methods.

The Project among African-Americans to Explore Risks for Schizophrenia (PAARTNERS) is a multi-site, NIMH-funded study that seeks to identify genetic polymorphisms that confer susceptibility to schizophrenia among African-Americans by linkage mapping and targeted association analyses. Because deficits in certain dimensions of cognitive ability are thought to underlie liability to schizophrenia, the project also examines cognitive abilities in individuals affected by schizophrenia and their extended family members. This article describes PAARTNERS study design, ascertainment methods and preliminary sample characteristics.