Encephale
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Most instruments focussing on hypochondriasis symptoms do not have for goal to assess beliefs specifically. Instead, these instruments are used to measure specific behaviors. To assess underlying beliefs with these kinds of instruments, you have to extract false beliefs by deduction. ⋯ These results show that general health beliefs and false beliefs associated to worry about health are more often present in high worriers than in moderate worriers. The GHBQ and the WW-H allow psychologists, physicians and psychiatrists to do a quicker and more exhaustive evaluation of general health beliefs and false beliefs associated to worry about health, in less costs. These questionnaires will improve the chances of success of the hypochondriasis' treatment by helping clinicians to detect and correct false beliefs more easily.
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The term alexithymia is derived from the Greek and means no words for feeling and is used to describe a personality trait characterized by the inability to experience and express emotion. Alexithymia is a relevant feature in subjects with eating disorders. The Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS) is the more used scale to assess alexithymia. ⋯ Emotional and cognitive avoidance could be linked to the fact that our subjects wanted to loose weight and exhibited restrain eating. A positive correlation between restrain eating and alexithymia was previously reported. The last factor lack of interest in psychological comprehension would constitute an actual dimension of alexithymia: former studies found a negative correlation between alexithymia and psychologically oriented thinking.
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Schizophrenic patients are known to feature alterations in their cognitive performances, principally in executive functions, attention and memory. In this last domain, studies have shown a relatively severe and global deficit, which can be assessed in chronic and first episode patients. It seems that the memory dysfunction is independent of age and intellectual level, but does correlate with negative psychopathology and global functioning. ⋯ Further analyses taking into account group differences on attention suggest that the impairment featured by schizophrenic patients in the domain of verbal memory strongly relies on an attentional deficit. These results are discussed according to the existing literature and methodological limitations. Clinical implications are also discussed.
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Review
[Review of psychopharmacological treatments in adolescents and adults with autistic disorders].
Autism is an early developmental disorder. It leads to severe and durable disturbances. Given this problem, no treatment can be excluded a priori. ⋯ Conclusion - There is no consensus on the use of psychopharmacological treatments in autism. Although there exist many clinical observations, only few controlled studies have validated the efficiency and safety of these treatments. At the present time and until having sufficient studies, drugs are generally limited to severe disorders, for which usual psycho-educational approaches are insufficient.
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Klinefelter's syndrome (KS) concerns men and is usually characterized by tallness, underdeveloped testes and sterility. It is generally due to the 47,XXY genotype, ie one extra X chromosome in each cell. Its estimated frequency among newborn boys is 1/500 to 1/700. ⋯ This therapy generally improves physical well-being and improves mood, concentration, capacity at work. There is no consistent data in the litterature proving that restoring physiological testosterone blood levels would be dangerous for KS men presenting severe psychiatric troubles. However, this should be discussed in each situation with caution, and androgens should be introduced very progressively.