Effect size of lithium, divalproex sodium, and carbamazepine in children and adolescents with bipolar disorder.

Objective: To develop effect sizes for 3 mood stabilizers--lithium, divalproex sodium, and carbamazepine--for the acute-phase treatment of bipolar I or II disorder, mixed or manic episode, in children and adolescents aged 8 to 18 years.

Method: Forty-two outpatients with a mean age of 11.4 years (20 with bipolar I disorder and 22 with bipolar II disorder) were randomly assigned to 6 weeks of open treatment with either lithium, divalproex sodium, or carbamazepine.

Prediction of response to fluoxetine and placebo in children and adolescents with major depression: a hypothesis generating study.

Background: The results of multivariate analyses to identify potential predictors of response to fluoxetine or placebo separately in 96 child and adolescent outpatients with major depressive disorder from a recent controlled trial are presented.

Methods: A variety of clinical, demographic and laboratory factors were examined as possible predictors of response to fluoxetine or placebo using logistic regression models.

Results: No single variable or combination of variables strongly predicted response to fluoxetine.

Horsefeathers: a commentary on "evolutionary versus prototype analyses of the concept of disorder".

J. C. Wakefield's (1999) article further develops his harmful dysfunction (HD) model for disorder concepts.

The psychologic assessment and psychosocial recovery of the patient with an amputation.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the surgical clinician to the importance of psychosocial issues in those patients undergoing amputation. Although fundamental, obtaining a good recovery for the patient means far more than providing a technically superb surgical outcome. This paper reviews the necessity of a thorough preoperative assessment in those psychosocial areas most likely to impact how the patient perceives, reacts to, and, ultimately, accepts the recommendation for amputation.

Rationales, values, and DSM-IV: the case of "medication-induced movement disorders".

The DSM-IV has improved psychiatric diagnostic classification through initiating, among other things, the open disclosure of rationales for nosologic changes. It will be argued that a consideration of values is necessary in justifying nosologic changes, considerations missing from the DSM-IV rationales. In illustration of this, I examine the reasons for including the medication-induced movement disorders (MIMDs) on axis I by using a literature review, then compare the published rationales for including the MIMDs with the DSM-IV Task Force's own guidelines for including categories.

Fluoxetine and oculomotor activity during sleep in depressed patients.

The effects of fluoxetine on automated measures of electrooculographic (EOG) and electromyographic (EMG) activity were evaluated in 41 patients with nonpsychotic, major depressive disorder. Sleep EEG evaluations were conducted at baseline, while patients were symptomatic and unmedicated, and following four to five weeks of treatment with fluoxetine (20 mg). The number of eye movements (> 75 microV) and the amplitude of EOG and EMG activity increased significantly on treatment in REM, stages 1, 2, and slow-wave sleep.

Sleep EEG features of adolescents with major depression.

A substantial body of research in adults has established that certain sleep polysomnographic abnormalities are commonly found in depressed patients, including sleep continuity disturbances, reduced slow-wave sleep, shortened rapid eye movement (REM) latency and increased REM density. To date the findings in depressed adolescents are equivocal. Three consecutive nights of polysomnographic recordings were obtained in 31 hospitalized depressed adolescents and 17 age-matched normal controls.

Case report: menstrual-related very short REM latency in a healthy normal control.

A healthy young woman with regular menstrual cycles and no premenstrual complaints spent 2 consecutive nights in the laboratory at follicular and mid-luteal phases of her cycle. Few differences were noted in sleep parameters with the exception of rapid eye movement (REM) latency, which decreased from 62.5 +/- 0 minutes in the follicular phase to 4.