29 Sep How Psychiatric Medication Management Keeps Treatment on Track
Notice: If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, 24/7). For mental health treatment referrals, contact SAMHSA at 1-800-662-4357 (free, confidential, 24/7) or visit findtreatment.gov. Do not stop psychiatric medications abruptly without medical supervision.
Psychiatric medication can reduce distress, improve daily functioning, and support recovery when the treatment plan matches a person's needs. Yet medication decisions require more than selecting a prescription. Providers must review symptoms, diagnosis, medical history, previous trials, side effects, and treatment goals. Regular follow-up then shows whether the plan works in daily life. A structured process keeps decisions informed as symptoms and circumstances change. According to the NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health), psychiatric medications are most effective when prescribed as part of a comprehensive treatment plan that includes regular monitoring, clear communication between patient and provider, and coordination with other therapeutic approaches.
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Dr. Rettew[/caption]
David C. Rettew, MD
Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist
Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics
University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Our group, the Wellness Environment Scientific Team at the University of Vermont, hadn’t planned to look at COVID at the outset of this study and instead were going to look at mental health and engagement in wellness activities in college students across a semester. The pandemic disrupted that plan when students were abruptly sent home but fortunately, they continued to do their daily app-based ratings of their mood, stress levels, and engagement in healthy activities. We then realized we had some interesting pre-COVID to COVID data that was worth exploring. 
Dr. Ganson[/caption]
Kyle T. Ganson, PhD, MSW
Assistant Professor, Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work
University of Toronto
Toronto, Canada
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Dr. Nagata[/caption]
Jason Nagata, MD, MSc
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
University of California, San Francisco
San Francisco, California, USA
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: A quarter of young adults in the US have reported being unemployed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Young adults may be especially affected by employment loss as they often work in industries most adversely affected by social distancing.
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings?
Response: Among a sample of nearly 5,000 young adults age 18 to 26 in the US, we found that since March 2020, young adults who lost their job or were part of a household that experienced employment loss were more likely than those with secure employment to experience four common symptoms of anxiety and depression. This was also true of young adults who expected an employment loss in the next four weeks. The study also found that symptoms of anxiety and depression were common among the sample of young adults. In the seven days prior to the survey, 75% reported being nervous, anxious or on edge, 68% reported not being able to stop or control worrying, 67% reported having little interest or pleasure in doing things, and 64% reported feeling down, depressed, or hopeless.
Dr. Etkin[/caption]
Amit Etkin, MD, PhD
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Stanford Universitu
Stanford, CA
MedicalResearch.com: What is the mission of Cohen Veterans Bioscience - CVB?
Response: Cohen Veterans Bioscience (CVB) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) research biotech dedicated to fast-tracking the development of diagnostic tests and personalized therapeutics for the millions of Veterans and civilians who suffer the devastating effects of trauma-related and other brain disorders.
MedicalResearch.com: How can patients with PTSD or MDD benefit from this information?
Response: With the discovery of this new brain imaging biomarker, patients who suffer from PTSD or MDD may be guided towards the most effective treatment without waiting months and months to find a treatment that may work for them.
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: This study, which was supported with a grant from Cohen Veterans Bioscience, grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH and other supporters, derives from our work over the past few years which has pointed to the critical importance of understanding how patients with a variety of psychiatric disorders differ biologically. The shortcomings of our current diagnostic system have become very clear over the past 1-2 decades, but the availability of tools for transcending these limitations on the back of objective biological tests has not kept pace with the need for those tools.
In prior work, we have used a variety of methods, including different types of brain imaging, to identify brain signals that underpin key biological differences within and across traditional psychiatric diagnoses. We have also developed specialized AI tools for decoding complex patterns of brain activity in order to understand and quantify biological heterogeneity in individual patients. These developments have then, in turn, converged with the completion of a number of large brain imaging-coupled clinical trials, which have provided a scale of these types of data not previously available in the field.
Dr. Hervé Perron[/caption]
Hervé Perron PhD
Chief Scientific Officer at GeNeuro
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs), remnants of ancestral viral genomic insertions, are known to represent 8% of the human genome and are associated with several pathologies. Certain proteins produced by HERVs have previously been found to be involved in pathogenic mechanisms linked to, e.g., multiple sclerosis (MS) or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. However, despite previous results having shown an abnormal expression of HERV-W in patients with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, the mechanisms involved in these psychiatric disorders are poorly understood.
Dr. Diaz[/caption]
Lucia Diaz, M.D., is chief of pediatric dermatology, dermatology residency associate program director and assistant professor of medicine and pediatrics at Dell Medical School. She is also co-director of the dermatology-rheumatology combined clinic at Dell Children’s Medical Center.
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Dr. Jaquez[/caption]
Sasha Jaquez, Ph.D. is a pediatric psychologist at Dell Children's Medical School/Dell Children's Medical Center and specializes in seeing children with chronic medical illness, including skin disorders.
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