The interface of positive psychology with a psychology of loss: a brave new world?

In this paper, it is argued that a psychology of loss can help to illuminate one of the central themes of positive psychology: That is, showcasing those human skills that emphasize human strengths and optimal functioning. However, the interface of positive psychology and a psychology of loss also contains a definite paradox. Loss is not an intrinsically positive event that will necessarily build human strength. Yet, the experience of loss can become a profound means for showcasing human strengths and potential. We also caution that a positive psychology, in its quest to focus on the more uplifting qualities of the human experience, must also realize that suffering and loss is inherent to the human condition.     

Are infants with torticollis at risk of a delay in early motor milestones compared with a control group of healthy infants?

Recently it has been claimed that infants with congenital muscular torticollis (CMT) are at risk of a delay in early motor milestones. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether infants with CMT are indeed at risk in comparison with a control group of healthy infants. A second aim was to investigate whether the time spent in a prone position and plagiocephaly had any influence on motor development. Eighty-two infants with CMT (35 females and 47 males) were compared with 40 healthy infants (18 females and 22 males). Motor development was assessed with the Alberta Infant Motor scale (AIMS). Multiple regression showed that infants in the CMT group had a significantly lower AIMS score than the control group at 2 months ( p =0.03) and 6 months of age ( p =0.05). Infants who spent at least three occasions daily in a prone position when awake had significantly higher AIMS scores than infants who spent less time prone at 2 months ( p =0.001), 6 months ( p <0.001), and 10 months of age ( p <0.001). The CMT group achieved early motor milestones significantly later than the control group until the age of 10 months, but the risk of delay seems to be more strongly associated with little or no time prone when awake than with CMT.     

OCD with comorbid OCPD: a subtype of OCD?

OBJECTIVE: The current study examined the validity of using comorbid obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) to identify a subtype of individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). METHOD: Data for the current study were drawn from an ongoing, longitudinal study of the course of OCD and include intake assessments for 238 subjects with primary and current DSM-IV OCD who were treatment seeking. RESULTS: More than one fourth of the subjects (N=65, 27%) met criteria for comorbid OCPD. As compared to OCD-OCPD subjects, the OCD+OCPD subjects had a significantly younger age at onset of first OC symptoms (p=0.013), and a higher rate of symmetry and hoarding obsessions, and cleaning, ordering, repeating, and hoarding compulsions (all p's<0.01). Individuals with OCD+OCPD had higher rates of comorbid anxiety disorders (p=0.007) and avoidant personality disorder (p=0.006). The OCD+OCPD subjects also had significantly lower ratings of global functioning (p=0.001) and more impaired social functioning (p=0.004), despite a lack of significant differences on overall severity of OCD symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings indicate that individuals with both OCD and OCPD have distinct clinical characteristics in terms of age at onset of initial OC symptoms, the types of obsessions and compulsions they experience, and psychiatric comorbidity. Our findings, coupled with data from family studies showing a higher than expected frequency of OCPD in first degree relatives of OCD probands, suggest that OCD associated with OCPD may represent a specific subtype of OCD. Additional research is warranted to further establish the validity of this subtype.     

Clinical advantages of COMT inhibition with entacapone – a review

Two catechol- O-methyltransferase (COMT) inhibitors, entacapone and tolcapone, were developed during the 1990's to be used as adjuncts to levodopa (LD) - dopa decarboxylase (DDC) inhibitors in the treatment of Parkinson's disease (PD). Entacapone is currently in wide clinical use, while tolcapone can be used in restricted indications only, due to its hepatotoxicity. COMT inhibitors prolong the elimination of LD, while DDC inhibitors mainly increase its absorption; both mechanisms leading to increased bioavailability of LD. The pharmacokinetic properties of LD, carbidopa and entacapone are quite similar, and entacapone is administered concomitantly with LD plus carbidopa. Entacapone prolongs the clinical effect of each LD dose by 30 to 40 minutes; this effect is seen already after the first entacapone dose. When LD is administered in several frequent daily doses, addition of entacapone reduces the daily fluctuations of plasma LD by 30 to 40%.Based on studies with home diaries, entacapone increases the daily ON-time by an average of one to two hours, and reduces the daily OFF-time correspondingly in patients with PD with motor fluctuations. The daily LD dose has been reduced by 10 to 30%. These positive effects are sustained in long term use over several years. There is still scant information of the benefit of entacapone in patients without motor fluctuations.Entacapone can cause both dopaminergic and non-dopaminergic adverse events. Increased dyskinesias are most frequently recorded in patients with motor fluctuations. The dopaminergic adverse events can usually be diminished by reducing the LD dose. Non-dopaminergic adverse events are abdominal pain and diarrhea. Diarrhoea has led to discontinuation in 3 to 4% of the patients in clinical trials. Entacapone has not been connected to liver toxicity and there are no indications to follow laboratory safety during treatment. The benefit-risk ratio of entacapone is considered favorable.A triple LD/carbidopa/entacapone combination tablet has recently been developed. Three LD strengths (50, 100 and 150 mg) are available, each contains 200 mg of entacapone. The majority of the patients can be managed with these three LD strengths. Entacapone has today an established position in treatment of PD patients with motor fluctuations, either as a separate tablet or as the triple LD combination.     

Is a plum a memory problem? Longitudinal study of the reversal of concreteness effect in a patient with semantic dementia

The concreteness effect, which refers to the typically superior performance for concrete concepts compared to abstract ones, is a robust phenomenon that has been observed in normal and brain-damaged subjects in a number of cognitive domains. Reversal of this effect was also reported in a few neuropsychological studies, mainly in patients with semantic dementia (SD). In this article, we report the first longitudinal single-case study of a patient with SD, SC, who performed better for abstract than concrete concepts in various comprehension and production tasks. For concrete concepts, SC showed no category-specific deficit but was impaired in tasks exploring access to stored structural knowledge and semantic perceptual attributes. With the course of the disease, the semantic system progressively declined and the reversal of the concreteness effect, as well as the dissociation between perceptual and non-perceptual knowledge, vanished. We discuss the results and their implications for theoretical propositions of concreteness effect as well as theoretical models of semantic memory. We suggest that the reversal of concreteness in SC is a direct result of the degradation of visual feature knowledge, sustained by anatomical structures affected early in SD. With the time course of the disease, the atrophy extends to adjacent regions and the dissociation between abstract and concrete concepts was no longer observed.     

Who stalks? A description of patients at a high security hospital with a history of stalking behaviour

BACKGROUND: Knowledge about stalking, and in particular the people who do it, is limited in the UK. AIM: This study aims to describe a sample of stalkers drawn from the resident population of Broadmoor high security hospital in the UK. METHODS: Case notes and research database information for 362 consecutive admissions were used to identify stalkers retrospectively. Data were extracted using a stalking behaviour screening checklist. RESULTS: A total of 33 patients (9.1%) were classified as stalkers. They were mostly male (28), young (median age 29), unmarried (30), minimally educated and unemployed. Most had psychosis and personality disorder. They had inflicted a wide range of unwanted intrusions and communications on their victims, and both threats (55%) and assaults (45%) were common. The types of stalkers were more or less equally split between intimacy seeking, rejected suitors, resentful and predatory, with only a tiny group being incompetent suitors. CONCLUSIONS: Although this small group of stalkers had been intrusive and attacking, few had been referred for treatment because of the stalking. The screening questionnaire is easy to use and can be done from records. It may be that such screening should become routine in specialist secure hospitals.     

Interviews with children of persons with a severe mental illness—Investigating their everyday situation

Research on children of persons with a severe mental illness focuses predominantly on parents’ and others’ perceptions. Children of mentally ill parents form a vulnerable group that has not been adequately paid attention to in psychiatric care institutions. Comparatively little is known about the children's recognition of their parents and the everyday situation of these families. The aim of the study was to investigate experiences of their life situation in children 10–18 years of age in a family with a parent with a severe mental illness. Eight children were interviewed concerning their everyday life situation. The interviews were analysed inspired from using thematic analysis. From the analysis of the material emerged aspects concerning the following themes: need for conversation, love for their family, maturity, experience of fear and blame, feelings of loneliness, responsibility and associated stigma. This study highlights the situation experienced by children of severely mentally ill persons who also are parents. The study may be found to be a basis for inspiring structured interventions and treatments programmes including children of the adult patients seeking psychiatric treatment.     

Mortalin: a protein associated with progression of Parkinson disease?

Parkinson disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that is considered to affect the brainstem at its early stages and other brain regions, including the limbic system and isocortex, in advanced stages. It has been suggested that PD progression is characterized pathologically by the spreading of Lewy body deposition. To identify novel proteins involved in PD progression, we prepared subcellular fractions from the frontal cortex of pathologically verified PD patients at different stages of disease and Lewy body deposition and from age-matched controls. Protein expression profiles were compared using a robust quantitative proteomic technique called isobaric tagging for relative and absolute quantification in conjunction with mass spectrometry. Approximately 200 proteins were found to display significant differences in their relative abundance between PD patients at various stages and controls. Gene ontology analysis indicated that these altered proteins belonged to many categories (e.g. mitochondrial function and neurotransmission) that were likely critically involved in the pathogenesis of PD. Of those, mortalin, a mitochondrial protein, was decreased in the advanced PD cases and was further validated to be decreased using independent techniques. These results suggest a role for mortalin in PD progression.     

Long-term neuropsychological follow-up of a child with Klüver-Bucy syndrome

We describe the case of a 10-year-old girl who developed behavioral changes consistent with Klüver-Bucy Syndrome following Listeria meningoencephalitis at 2? years of age. MRI at age 4 revealed evidence of diffuse brain atrophy with predominant temporal lobe involvement. Electroencephalograpy at 9? years of age showed abnormal electrical discharges from the left temporal area. Follow-up MRI with volumetric analysis of the mesial temporal structures at 9 years of age demonstrated decreased hippocampal volume bilaterally. Consistent with the morphological abnormalities, serial neuropsychological evaluations demonstrated expressive and receptive language impairment and an amnestic syndrome that significantly decreased her ability to make new declarative memories and maintain adequate academic progress.     

On the interaction of a donepezil-huprine hybrid with synthetic membrane models

<正>Alzheimer’s disease is the most prevalent type of dementia today,discovered and described by Alois Alzheimer in 1907.According to the World Alzheimer Report 2021,75%of people with dementia worldwide are undiagnosed,equivalent to 41 million people (Gauthier et al.,2021).With each passing year,the number of people affected by these diseases is increasing,and the estimates of suffering from them in the future are growing.There are currently only four drugs used against Alzheimer’s disease:...     

Is history of depression a contraindication to treatment with tetrabenazine?

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether a history of depression predisposes hyperkinetic patients treated with tetrabenazine (TBZ) to a recurrence or worsening of this symptom. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed the charts of 518 patients treated with TBZ to determine the frequency of depression and other adverse events. Charts were screened for the preexistence, development, or exacerbation of depression during the course of treatment. RESULTS: The most common adverse events related to TBZ were somnolence (27.4%), depression (15.1%), parkinsonism (11.8%), and akathisia (8.9%); 78 patients (15.1%) experienced depression for the first time or an exacerbation of existing depression. Of those patients with no history of depression, 28 (11.4%) of 246 were newly diagnosed with depression. Patients with a documented history of depression experienced a significantly higher rate of worsening in 50 (18.4%) of 272 cases (P = 0.03). However, patients with a history of depression experienced more improvement of their hyperkinesia compared to those without a history of depression (P < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Depression, an adverse event of TBZ, is more likely to occur or worsen in patients with a preexisting history of depression.     

Art materials and processes – a place of meeting art psychotherapy with a four-year-old boy

Abstract

This article explores the complex role of art materials and processes in art psychotherapy with a four-year-old boy with developmental delay. Individual art psychotherapy sessions were conducted over an eighteen-month period. By focusing in detail on work done in the first seven months of his therapy, the author is able to highlight the multifaceted role played by art materials and processes in supporting therapeutic change. The pivotal role played by engagement with the art materials paint, water, sand, whiteboard and clay is described in detail. Initial negotiations that focused on the boys use of and relationship with the materials laid the foundations of a relationship with his therapist in which he was able to develop an internal space that was separate from outside experience and so begin to develop an independent identity. Countertransference was used as a tool for understanding the boys interactions with the materials, for finding meaning in apparent mindlessness and for providing containment in order to lay the foundations of a sense of self. This assisted the development of his language and ability to play in the sessions as well as supporting his social development in his family and elsewhere. The authors arguments are contextualised in current art therapy theory as well as with reference to psychoanalytic concepts, child psychotherapy and art education.     

Typically developing adolescents’ experience of growing up with a brother with an autism spectrum disorder

Background Researchers studying siblings of people with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) suggest that growing up with an individual with disability has positive and negative effects.

Method Qualitative content analysis of semistructured interviews with 14 typically developing (TD) adolescents with a brother with an ASD and their mothers was used to explore the experience of growing up with a sibling with an ASD and identify differences in the relationship with, and attitude toward, the brother.

Results TD siblings expressed mixed feelings about their brother, a precocious sense of responsibility, concern about the future, friendship difficulties, and troubles and the desire to talk about their experience. Most adolescents integrated their positive and negative feelings; however, 3 adolescents displayed rejection, denial, or a sense of persecution.

Conclusions Qualitative research into the experiences of adolescent siblings of people with an ASD should be used to develop support programs to help adolescents manage their relationship with a sibling with a disability.     

Men with epilepsy--the lost tribe? Results of a nationwide survey of men with epilepsy living in the UK.

The incidence of epilepsy is the same in men and women yet more time and energy has been expended on "women's issues" in recent times. In 2004, Epilepsy Action (The British Epilepsy Association) conducted a nationwide survey of men with epilepsy (MWE), who had contacted their helpline in the previous year. The men were comfortable discussing their epilepsy and confident in asking for information. They felt keenly the lack of driving privileges and the type of work available to them. A majority felt the condition adversely affected their self-esteem and quality of life. Most men expressed satisfaction with the quality of care and information they got from their general practitioners and their neurologist.