W Wolfgang Fleischhacker

..Few studies have directly compared the efficacy and tolerability of atypical agents...

..Implications for clinical trial design and the interpretation of such studies are discussed...

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..Second-generation antipsychotics (SGAs) represent an advance in the long-term management of schizophrenia...

..Improvements may reduce metabolic risk factors associated with clozapine treatment...

..Treatment with second generation antipsychotics may improve executive performance in patients with schizophrenia and facilitate a normalization of functional hypofrontality after symptomatic improvement...

..Associations have been found between the severity of cognitive deficits and social dysfunction, impairments in independent living, occupational limitations, and disturbances in quality of life (QOL)...

..The present cross-sectional study examined the relationships of psychopathology, side effects, and sociodemographic factors with treatment outcomes in terms of patients' quality of life (QOL), functioning, and needs for care...

..These results are important with regard to the increased risk for cardiovascular complications in patients with schizophrenia...

..Our observations suggest that subjective and functional outcomes in highly compliant patients are mainly predicted by psychopathological symptoms and unchangeable sociodemographic variables...

..Factors deemed relevant in this context include severity of symptoms, antipsychotic-induced side effects, sociodemographic variables, and patients' subjective response to medication...

..5%; females=2.4%). In addition, this study shows that alcohol plays a more important role in patients up to 70 years in fall-related accidents when compared to accidents of other causes...

..The same procedure was used in this study to investigate unmedicated patients during an acute episode of schizophrenia...

..This study adds evidence to the existing literature about the co-occurance of alcohol and/or benzodiazepine consumption and accident-related injuries...

..This prospective, naturalistic study investigated the factors influencing physicians' choice of antipsychotic drug therapy in the treatment of patients with schizophrenia...

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..Dropout rates in randomized clinical trials of antipsychotic drugs have consistently been reported to be high, and the use of a placebo-controlled design is hypothesized to be one of the reasons for this...

..The extent to which antipsychotics improve patients' well-being is uncertain...

..These results suggest that decreased language lateralization is also evident in unmedicated patients experiencing an acute episode of schizophrenia...

..These data clearly show that clinical assessment of cognitive deficits by the PANSS is not a viable alternative to neuropsychological testing to obtain information about cognitive functioning in schizophrenia...

..In addition, there is a strong correlation between the prolactin-increasing properties of amisulpride and menstrual irregularities...

..Our findings confirm and extend those of other groups. This should encourage psychiatrists at least in academic settings where most of this research has been done to approach patients to take part in clinical research...

..Ethanol's direct effect on bone-modeling cells as well as alcoholism-related "life-style factors" such as malnutrition, lack of exercise, hormonal changes, and liver cirrhosis are discussed as potential causative factors...

..The authors' goals were to investigate the association between schizophrenia and a decrease in bone mineral density and to get more insight into potential underlying pathophysiological mechanisms...

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..We conclude that antipsychotic-induced elevation of liver enzymes is mostly transient and could be associated with weight gain...

..These results support the view that the successful episodic retrieval of newly learned faces is based on a dorsal visual stream mechanism...

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..A secondary aim was to evaluate whether the benefits of CR generalize to noncognitive clinically meaningful outcomes at the end of inpatient treatment...

..All in all, the pharmacological management of schizophrenia patients is increasingly in tune with current treatment guidelines...

..Our findings suggest gender-related neural responses to emotional stimuli and could contribute to the understanding of mechanisms underlying gender-related vulnerability of the prevalence and severity of neuropsychiatric disorders...

..With regard to side-effects, we could not find any significant difference between groups. Altogether, response and side-effects to clozapine treatment do not seem to be determined by the chronicity of the disorder...

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..Sample size requirements for various equivalence margins in noninferiority trials are provided. Scientific and ethical arguments should lead to a more frequent use of the active-control noninferiority trial design...

..These data indicate that high-functioning schizophrenia patients show a reduced language lateralization of the frontal cortex compared to healthy controls...

..In this study, we examined the relationship between different olfactory functions and volumes of the hippocampus-amygdala complex (HAC) and the orbitofrontal brain region using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)...

..Olfactory dysfunctions were found across both nostrils. Results suggest specific dysfunctions in olfactory processing in schizophrenia patients, including early stages of the odor identification process...

..The aim of this study was to compare glucose metabolism in patients with schizophrenia receiving olanzapine with that in control subjects...

..Further studies in other indications and clinical trials that confirm results from the Phase II and III clinical development programme are eagerly awaited...

..This review discusses some of the most recently developed antipsychotic compounds that have undergone clinical assessment from the perspective of their metabolic impact...

..The long-term safety and efficacy of long-acting injectable risperidone, the first long-acting second-generation antipsychotic, were evaluated in stable patients with schizophrenia...

..These and other facts have stimulated discussions regarding the effectiveness of the new generation of antipsychotics...

..No indication was found of a deterioration of any of the five investigated neuropsychological functions during the 4-week treatment period with nabilone...

..Although much is known about the opinions of professionals concerning this issue, so far nothing is known about the opinions of patients who are most affected by the realization of placebo-controlled clinical trials...

..Verbal memory deficits are among the most severe cognitive deficits observed in patients with schizophrenia. This study examined patterns of brain activity during episodic encoding and recognition of words in patients with schizophrenia...

..Furthermore, unless patient data are compared with normative values, phenomena such as adaptation and response shift might be missed or misinterpreted...

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..The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale total score decreased, and all cognitive measures improved.Electroconvulsive therapy would seem to be a safe treatment option for treatment-refractory schizophrenia patients...

..As yet, it is difficult to predict which of these mechanisms will effectively augment the currently available treatments...

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..We review the available evidence concerning techniques, problems and consequences when switching from one second-generation antipsychotic agent to another and discuss potential difficulties...

..However, olfactory functioning with regard to the immediate, perception driven odor associations is unknown. Therefore, this study assessed olfactory judgements in nonamnesic and nondemented patients with alcohol dependence...

..We have investigated health behaviour, quality of life, and sociodemographic variables of people with psychopharmacological treatment using data from the most recent Austrian Health Survey...

..Clinicians should take these risks seriously in prescribing these antipsychotics and employ intelligent safeguards if and when they use them...

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..To assess patient performance on different clock tasks...

..Concerning alcohol or benzodiazepine use, females showed lower frequencies of both alcohol and benzodiazepine positive blood samples. The frequency of alcohol use was higher in patients <or= 60 years of age...

..Cholesterol levels do not appear to be an appropriate biological marker for suicidality during the first 4 weeks of treatment in patients with a major depressive episode...

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..In this context it also addresses several methodological and conceptional issues that limited the comparison of these studies...

..Most recent phase II and phase III PCTs of antipsychotics in schizophrenia have been conducted outside Europe. This development needs to be better understood...

..Various olfactory deficits have been reported in the alcohol-induced amnestic syndrome (Korsakoff's syndrome). Less is known about olfactory functioning in nonamnesic and nondemented alcoholic patients...