Depression

October 11th is National Depression Screening Day. But how do you screen, diagnose, and treat effectively given the time constraints of busy office practice?

Benzodiazepines are overprescribed and abused; are increasingly responsible for emergency room visits; and are contraindicated for patients with chronic pain.

For many patients with diabetic peripheral neuropathy, severe pain can be controlled to a degree sufficient to improve their quality of life. Here: effective management strategies, including topical agents, oral medications, and nonpharmacological therapies (eg, acupuncture and transcutaneous nerve stimulation).

The key diagnostic considerations hypokalemia, periodic paralysis, and ischemia should lead the assessment of a patient with acute generalized weakness.

Chronic pain management in the elderly is complex. Safe and effective use of analgesic medications in geriatric patients requires risk-benefit analysis.

Medication overuse headache can result from overuse of any drug to abort acute headache. Discontinuation is the only effective treatment and is difficult.

Anxiety is even more common than depression among people who have arthritis, a new study has shown. Here to discuss the implications for diagnosis and treatment is Eilzabeth Lin MD, a family medicine physician who is a longstanding researcher in the field of depression and pain.

Also known as “broken-heart syndrome,” Takotsubo syndrome is a stress-induced cardiomyopathy.

A 56-year-old woman noted the abrupt onset of several very painful ulcerations located on her back. The patient had known (and active) Crohn disease, clinical depression requiring ongoing psychiatric care, and borderline diabetes mellitus.

Would you treat the elevated A1C aggressively-and what would your target level be? Would you consider statins? Dr Shahady invites your insights.

Are these findings another green light for dark chocolate? Some experts say “yes” as they also point to a recommended upper daily “dose.” What does this new research add to the current data on the health benefits of the flavinoid-rich sweet? Drs Payal Kohli and Christopher Cannon discuss study results and what you should tell your patients.

Ulcerative colitis has a greater impact on patients’ quality of life than physicians perceive, and the disease affects their lives even more than the impact of other chronic conditions, according to paired surveys of doctors and patients.

Here: 10 tips that can help you provide optimal care of your patients with MS.

A 52-year-old woman presents with severe intra-oral ulceration and oral pain. She reports that several years earlier, she had been taking cephalexin when severe intra-oral ulceration developed.

Different strategies to prompt patients to take their antidepressant as prescribed have been tried. Many that have been evaluated in controlled trials are considered in a new review that examines their effectiveness.

The British medical journal, The Lancet, surveyed a number of studies that discuss troubling statistics on suicide and depression among American physicians.

Prenatal and Postpartum Depression Not Limited to Mothers

A 48-year-old African American man with no significant medical history sustained a gunshot wound to the face and shoulder.

Psychiatrist Sidney Zisook, MD-a guest speaker at the recent American College of Physicians meeting in San Diego

Twenty years ago, the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) introduced the following clinical criteria for the diagnosis of fibromyalgia (FM) . . .