Schizophrenia: A New Guide for Clinicians (Medical Psychiatry, Volume 16)

Contains guidelines and recommendations-in tabular form for quick reference-on patient evaluation and optimal treatment for long-term care! Based on evidence from recent systematic clinical research studies, this comprehensive reference provides the latest information on the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of schizophrenia-highlighting modern diagnostic tools and current therapeutic advances for the prevention of hallucinations, thought disorganization, and negative symptoms. Emphasizes family education and psychoeducation, and community-centered treatments for patient rehabilitation and adherence to management programs! With consideration of the chronic nature of the disease, Schizophrenia details the effect of substance abuse and drug dependence on rehabilitation and treatment second-generation antipsychotic drugs, including olanzapine, quetiapine, risperiodone, and ziprasidone contemporary strategies to prevent depression and suicide patterns of patient compliance and noncompliance violence and forensic hospitalization With over 600 useful references, Schizophrenia is an essential source for psychiatrists and psychopharmacologists, clinical neurologists and neuropsychopharmacologists, psychologists, primary care physicians, social workers, nurses, and graduate and medical school students in these disciplines. New imaging techniques to investigate the brain and new classifications of symptoms have renewed interest in the etiologies and pathologies of this common, but highly complex psychiatric disorder. In 14 papers on assessment and diagnosis, treatment, and special management issues, With case examples and specific tips for clinicians, North American contributors address such aspects as interviewing patients, laboratory tests to aid in diagnosis, psychosocial and cognitive rehabilitation, antipsychotic drug side effects, the relationship between mental illness and violence, comorbidity with substance abuse, family education, and schizophrenia from a life-cycle perspective. Csernansky (psychiatry, Washington U. School of Medicine) is medical director of the Metropolitan St. Louis Psychiatric Center in Missouri. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR This chapter is intended to help you enter into conversations with patients who have schizophrenia (referred to more briefly, if less accurately, in the remainder of this chapter as schizophrenic patients), conversations that will allow the two of you to begin to get to know each other and that might hold the promise of developing the therapeutic alliance on which successful treatment so heavily depends. This work provides information on the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of schizophrenia. It highlights modern diagnostic tools and current therapeutic advances for the prevention of hallucinations, thought disorganization, and negative symptoms