T R E Barnes

..The aim was to evaluate a quality improvement programme designed to increase screening for the metabolic syndrome in community psychiatric patients prescribed antipsychotics...

..However, progress is gradual and gains generally modest...

..The potential risks of such treatment are becoming clearer, but the benefits remain uncertain. Concern about the frequency and quality of such prescribing was expressed in the National Dementia Strategy for England in 2009...

..This study suggests that early in the course of schizophrenia, general cognitive ability, as measured by IQ, is a more sensitive and reliable predictor of functional outcome than measures of specific ability...

..Adherence to these recommendations has not been subject to national UK audit...

..The MATISSE study aims to evaluate the clinical and cost effectiveness of group Art Therapy for people with schizophrenia...

..Direct but sensitive questioning may be required to elicit this side-effect. We briefly review possible mechanisms of this problem, and management and treatment options...

..Subsequently, its validity and reliability have been established, and it has been used extensively in clinical studies worldwide...

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..They are accompanied by a more detailed qualitative review of the available evidence. The strength of supporting evidence for each recommendation is rated...

..Substance use may be a risk factor for the onset of schizophrenia...

..Further, their prescription for each patient should be in the context of an individual trial, with monitoring of the clinical response and adverse effects, and appropriate physical health monitoring...

..In this QIP there was little improvement in overall performance against the clinical standards in the total national sample between baseline and re-audit...

..In first-episode schizophrenia, longer duration of untreated psychosis (DUP) predicts poorer outcomes...

..The impact of co-morbid substance use in first-episode schizophrenia has not been fully explored...

..The present study used an oculomotor 'rule switching' task to investigate the use of negative feedback when switching between task rules in people with schizophrenia...

..To test this hypothesis we investigated whether patients with schizophrenia showed impaired learning of task-relevant stimulus-reinforcement associations in the presence of distracting task-irrelevant cues...

..This study sought to identify factors that may be associated with medication adherence in first-episode schizophrenia...

..As response inhibition is known to occur in both voluntary and involuntary processes, an important question is whether both aspects of response inhibition are specifically impaired in people with schizophrenia...

..To examine the extent of use and clinical rationale for the prescribing of psychotropic drugs for people with personality disorder (PD) who are in contact with mental health services...

..The findings reinforce the value of prescribing surveys in mental health and the need to share understanding of the constraints that may lead to deviation from prescribing guidelines...

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..Possible explanations of these results include reduced working memory resources and impaired motor preparation in schizophrenia...

..Clinical guidelines recommend the routine use of a single antipsychotic drug in a standard dose, but prescriptions for high-dose and combined antipsychotics are common in clinical practice...

..The aim of this study was to determine the factors associated with receipt of different levels of shared care, and the effect of shared care on patient outcomes...

..CONCLUSIONS: These preliminary results demonstrate that specific structural abnormalities are associated with abnormal eye movements in schizophrenia...

..Studies of chronic schizophrenia suggest that there are subgroups with different profiles of cognitive impairment...

..In conclusion, in people with schizophrenia with poor treatment response to 2 or more antipsychotic drugs, there is an advantage to commencing clozapine rather than other SGA drugs in terms of symptom improvement over 1 year...

..To examine the nature and clinical correlates of insight in first-episode schizophrenia, and how these differ from findings in established schizophrenia...

..Most evidence comes from short-term efficacy trials of symptoms...

..The use of target plasma concentrations below those used for acute treatment should be explored as a strategy for minimizing side effects...

..We systematically reviewed the evidence pertaining to cannabis use and occurrence of psychotic or affective mental health outcomes...

..The initial cost of an adjunctive course of CBT for individuals with medication refractory schizophrenia may be justified in light of symptomatic benefits that persist over the medium term...

..The SCV of FA was lower in females across both groups and there was no correlation between the SCV of FA and clinical ratings...

..The FA reduction in patients may be due to aberrant myelination or axonal abnormalities, but the similar tract volumes in the two groups suggest that severe axonal loss is unlikely at this stage of the illness...

..The results of the study need to be interpreted in the light of the small sample size and of the limitations of current image analysis methods...

..CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that in schizophrenia working memory and antisaccade performance reflect the same abnormal prefrontal substrates and that smooth pursuit is mediated by a separate neural abnormality...

..The authors performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies of the potential of new-generation antipsychotic drugs to improve adherence and decrease relapse rates in patients with schizophrenia...

..This suggests that the patients had difficulty in encoding the essential features of the stimulus array. This finding is compatible with slowing of working memory consolidation...