Before giving a patient a first prescription for a drug, the doctor should explain several points. He should make clear what effects are likely to be experienced on first taking the drug, e.g. drowsiness or dry mouth. He should also explain how long it will be before therapeutic effects appear and what the first signs are likely to be, e.g. improved sleep after starting a tricyclic antidepressant. He should name any serious effects that must be reported by the patient, such as, coarse tremor after taking lithium.
Finally, he should indicate how long the patient need to take the drug. For some drug such as anxiolytics, the latter information is goven to discourage the patient from taking them for too long; for others, such as antidepressants, it is given to deter the patient from stopping too soon.
Month: October 2005
Disorders of attention and concentration
Attention is the ability to focus on the matter in hand. Concentration is the ability to maintain that focus. The ability to focus on a selected part of the information reaching the brain is important in many everyday situations e.g. when conversing in a noisy place. It is also important to be able to attend to more than one source of information at the same time, e.g. when conversing while driving a car.Â
Attention and concentration may be impaired in a wide variety of psychiatric disorderes including depressive disorders, mania, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia and organic disorders. Therefore the finding of abnormalities of attention and concentration does not assist in diagnosis. Nevertheless, these abnormalities are important in management; e.g. they affect patient’s ability to give or recieve information when interviewed and can interfere with a patient’s ability to work, drive a car or take part in leisure activities.Â