Recently, a reader made a comment about life expectancy in people who have schizophrenia. This has been a subject of considerable debate for years in psychiatry. The sad truth is that people with the illness die sooner than the general population. Some research estimates that schizophrenia reduces life expectancy by 20%. Now the reasons for... Read more
My last blog discussed some of the research that has been done on the risk of violence associated with people with schizophrenia, so in this entry I decided to discuss some of the interactions people with serious mental illness have with the criminal justice system. In the last two decades there have been several efforts... Read more
The April 16th shooting at Virginia Tech which led to over 30 students and faculty killed was the worst of its kind in U.S. history. There has been much discussion about the mental state of the shooter, Seung Hui Cho, particularly his evaluation and psychiatric hospitalization for imminent danger to himself. Several psychiatrists... Read more
For the past 15 years, my aunt has become paranoid, distrustful, and angry. She has difficulty sleeping, for years she refused to leave the house, and she believes that a secret society is controlling her and her family. She also gets into fights with everyone, although she is not a threat to herself or her family. The weird... Read more
My relative was doing well on seroquel (quetiapine) but he took himself off it because of heart palpitations. He is now on olanzapine, and although he is calmer, he is not what he was, in many respects. Do you know of a drug similar to seroquel – which was the most normalizing medication he's had – that doesn’t affect the... Read more
