Prescription drug abuse is a growing problem among adults and adolescents, and we all know that painkillers, benzodiazepines, and amphetamines can be bought on the street by people who don’t need them for medical reasons. However, not a lot of research has been done on misuse of prescription drugs by kids with legitimate prescriptions.

After reading these articles, you should be able to…

Head injuries occur in 110 to 400 out of every 100,000 adults each year, but are much more common in children—around 692 per 100,000 children younger than 15. Mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) occurs in 75% to 85% of these cases.

Should you be ordering vitamin D levels in your patients? Vitamin D studies have proliferated recently. The recent finding that vitamin D receptors are found in the brain, along with the well known association between low sunlight exposure and seasonal affective disorder, has led doctors to wonder whether there is an association between vitamin D deficiency and depression.

Sometimes thyroid disorders present with psychiatric symptoms. With Graves’ disease behavioral manifestations are very common, and can be the presenting symptoms. In children, these manifest as moodiness, irritability, and labile behavior.

If you want to watch a new drug wend its way to market, you might start watching the literature for ABT-809, a nicotinic receptor partial agonist and proposed novel approach to the treatment of ADHD.

A long term study comparing patients with early onset psychosis to those with later onset psychosis may have some good news for child psychiatry. While previous studies have shown worse or equivalent outcomes for younger onset patients, this study demonstrated a protective effect.

After reading these articles, you should be able to…

Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) is the mainstay of OCD treatment and has been shown to be more effective and more durable than medication, but it can be insufficient.

See all the approved and alternative treatments for OCD in children and adolescents.