OBJECTIVE We aimed to identify depressive symptom profiles that indicated the presence of depressive disorder and present optimal cut-off sub-scores for depressive symptom profiles for detecting depressive disorder in elderly subjects with chronic physical diseases including diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease/asthma, and coronary artery disease, using the Patient Health Questionnai...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the efficacy of pharmacotherapy on the symptoms of psychomotor agitation and aggressive behavior in a sample of patients with autistic spectrum disorder. METHOD The charts of all patients with a diagnosis of autistic spectrum disorder, receiving care for psychomotor agitation and/or aggressive behavior in two psychiatric outpatient departments between 2001 and 2006, were...

Patients who suffer from agitated depression accompanied by psychomotor agitation and irritability are prone to suicidal ideation and attempts and must therefore be diagnosed and treated with utmost care. Clinically, there have been more than a few cases of suicidal attempts that seemed to have been provoked by careless prescription of antidepressant medication. In the present study, administra...

BACKGROUND Psychomotor agitation is associated with different psychiatric conditions and represents an important issue in psychiatry. Current recommendations on agitation in psychiatry are not univocal. Actually, an improper assessment and management may result in unnecessary coercive or sedative treatments. A thorough and balanced review plus an expert consensus can guide assessment and treatm...

BACKGROUND Psychomotor agitation (PMA) is a state of motor restlessness and mental tension that requires prompt recognition, appropriate assessment and management to minimize anxiety for the patient and reduce the risk for escalation to aggression and violence. Standardized and applicable protocols and algorithms can assist healthcare providers to identify patients at risk of PMA, achieve timel...

INTRODUCTION Previous studies have suggested that the two opposite poles of psychomotor disturbances in unipolar depression (UD) - retardation and agitation - require different treatment strategies as the psychomotor overactivation requires an augmentation of the antidepressant therapy with mood stabilizers and/or atypical antipsychotics. OBJECTIVE The aim of the present study was to objectiv...

Cocaine is considered a leading cause of drug-related deaths. This is usually sudden, unwitnessed, and without prodromal features. It has been reported that in-hospital mortality is close to 2%. Cocaine has powerful central nervous system effects(1) and acute cocaine overdose has been associated with hyperthermia, agitation, paranoid ideation, status epilepticus, ventricular fibrillation, ventr...