BACKGROUND Whereas apathy is known as a common consequence of subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation in Parkinson's disease, few studies have investigated the psychiatric consequences of internal globus pallidus deep brain stimulation. METHOD Twenty consecutive parkinsonian patients who underwent bilateral pallidal stimulation were assessed 3 months prior to surgery (M‒3) and at both 3 (M...

OBJECTIVE To determine whether animal-assisted therapy (AAT) is associated with reductions in fear, anxiety, and depression in psychiatric patients before electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). MATERIALS AND METHODS Before their scheduled ECT treatment, 35 patients were assigned on alternate days to the treatment condition, consisting of a 15-minute AAT session, and the standard (comparison) condit...

OBJECTIVE To determine if a pharmacist assisted psychiatric clinic would improve adherence to medications and quality of life over 6 months. The primary study endpoints were the change from baseline in Medication Adherence Rating Scale (MARS), Brief Evaluation of Medication Influences and Beliefs (BEMIB), World Health Organization Quality of Life - BREF (WHOQOL-BREF) scales as well as hospitali...

The effects of psychiatric pharmacy services on clinical outcomes of acute care psychiatric inpatients were studied. Patients recruited at a state psychiatric facility during phase 1 (October 1996-March 1997) served as the control group and received only traditional centralized pharmaceutical services and physician-requested psychiatric pharmacotherapy consultations. Patients recruited during p...

Many rating scales have been applied to the evaluation of dystonia, but only few have been assessed for clinimetric properties. The Movement Disorders Society commissioned this task force to critique existing dystonia rating scales and place them in the clinical and clinimetric context. A systematic literature review was conducted to identify rating scales that have either been validated or use...

Objective The aim of the current study was to evaluate whether cognitive behavioral group therapy has a positive impact on psychiatric, and motor and non-motor symptoms in Parkinson's disease (PD). Methods We assigned 20 PD patients with a diagnosis of psychiatric disorder to either a 12-week cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) group or a psychoeducational protocol. For the neurological examin...

BACKGROUND A critical component that influences the measurement properties of a patient-reported outcome (PRO) instrument is the rating scale. Yet, there is a lack of general consensus regarding optimal rating scale format, including aspects of question structure, the number and the labels of response categories. This study aims to explore the characteristics of rating scales that function well...

Methods The JAMAR includes: Juvenile Arthritis Functionality Scale (JAFS) (0 = normal; 30 = worst), Pediatric Rheumatology Quality of Life (PRQL) questionnaire (0 = best; 30 = worst); visual analogue scales (0 = best; 10 = worst) for parent/patient rating of well-being (WB), pain (P), disease activity (DA); parent/patient assessment of morning stiffness, disease status, satisfaction about disea...

Have state-of-the-art clinical trials failed to deliver treatments for neurodegenerative diseases because of shortcomings in the rating scales used? This Review assesses two methodological limitations of rating scales that might help to answer this question. First, the numbers generated by most rating scales do not satisfy the criteria for rigorous measurements. Second, we do not really know wh...