In a previous issue of The Journal, I anticipated the decision of the Ninth Circuit in United States v. Loughner. The Ninth Circuit's opinion upheld the involuntary medication of Mr. Loughner under a Harper order, with awareness that he could thereby gain trial competence, and it allowed Mr. Loughner's extended commitment to Federal Medical Center (FMC)-Springfield for the purpose of rendering ...

Several factors suggest that spontaneous dyskinesia may be a useful supplemental phenotype for further elucidating the specific nature of the genetic contribution to schizophrenia. For example, involuntary movement abnormalities have been observed in both medicated and unmedicated schizophrenia patients, in individuals with schizotypal personality disorder, and sometimes in siblings of schizoph...

INTRODUCTION In this study, we aimed to investigate and compare the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of psychiatric inpatients hospitalized involuntarily and voluntarily. To our knowledge, there is no study analyzing involuntary psychiatric hospitalization in our country. METHOD In this retrospective study, we included a total of 504 patients who were involuntarily or voluntarily...

AIM To construct and assess the psychometric properties of an instrument to measure patients' attitudes towards involuntary hospitalization. METHODS This is a two phase study. In the first phase, based on comprehensive literature review, a twenty one item scale to measure patients' attitudes to involuntary admission was constructed. Forensic and inpatient Psychiatrists, patients' advocates an...

PURPOSE The study evaluated whether seclusion and coercive incidents would be reduced in extent and number if involuntary medication was the first choice of intervention. Patients admitted to an acute psychiatric ward were randomly allocated to two groups. In Group 1, involuntary medication was the intervention of first choice for dealing with agitation and risk of violence. In Group 2, seclusi...

We report a child with Satoyoshi syndrome manifested by involuntary painful muscle contractions and alopecia. Although an autoimmune origin of Satoyoshi syndrome seems likely, its exact etiology remains as yet unknown, as is the origin of the involuntary contractions. To gain a better understanding of the electrophysiological characteristics of the involuntary contractions, we performed a surfa...

A hallmark of voluntary motor control is the ability to stop an ongoing movement. Is voluntary motor inhibition a general neural mechanism that can be focused on any movement, including involuntary movements, or is it mere termination of a positive voluntary motor command? The involuntary arm lift, or 'floating arm trick', is a distinctive long-lasting reflex of the deltoid muscle. We investiga...

PURPOSE The adaptive strategies adopted by individuals with infantile nystagmus syndrome (INS) during reading are not clearly understood. Eye movement recordings were used to identify ocular motor strategies used by patients with INS during reading. METHODS Eye movements were recorded at 500 Hz in 25 volunteers with INS and 7 controls when reading paragraphs of text centered at horizontal gaz...

How do we know whether our own actions were voluntary or involuntary? Intentional theories of sense of agency suggest that we consciously perceive the intentions that accompany our actions, but reconstructive theories suggest that we perceive our actions only through the body movements and other effects that they produce. Intentions would then be mere confabulations, and not bona fide experienc...

The aim of this study was to analyze sociodemographic and medical characteristics of involuntary psychiatric inpatients treated during the five-year period of implementation of the Croatian Act on Mental Health. Data on involuntarily hospitalized patients according to the Croatian Act on Mental Health were singled out from the pool of inpatients treated at University Department of Psychiatry, S...