Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to A Elizur.
The activity of dopamine-beta-hydroxylase was measured in the serum before and immediately after electroconvulsive treatments. No significant difference was observed, suggesting that the seizures did not cause an increase in the peripheral sympathetic tone.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
A 56-year-old white male with a rare case of psychosomatic triad occurring during a single depressive episode is presented. The dynamics, course, and treatment are discussed. It is suggested that common psychosomatic mechanisms are interacting with the bipolar illness.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
The patients and staff of a psychiatric hospital were asked about their attitudes toward mental illness and how they conceive the roles of various patient and staff groups in the therapeutic community. The focus was on the bipolar dimension of "Custodial" vs. "Accountability" orientation. A Custodial orientation discourages autonomy, promotes submission, and emphasizes the satisfaction of the physical needs of the patients. On the other hand, an orientation of Accountability emphasizes the "healthy" aspects of the patients and encourages autonomy and the sharing of power. These orientations were tapped by the use of a close-structured questionnaire. The results revealed that attitudes toward mental illness and role conceptions were highly related. Patients and nursing staff showed a greater custodial orientation than did other members of the staff.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
The perception of physical pain and its relationship to psychological variables were examined in emergency-room (ER) patients who were admitted following suicide attempts or accident injuries, and in a control group of community subjects. Two pain measures, involving electric shocks, were administered to the subjects. Psychological variables included hardiness, body image, body satisfaction feelings about the body, stressful events, anxiety and depression. Suicidal subjects endured the highest number of shocks, scored lowest on the appraisal of pain, and scored lowest on psychological hardiness. Moreover, it was found that, among the suicidal subjects, the more negative the scores of psychological variables, the higher the endurance of pain. In accident victim subjects, the relationships were exactly opposite. These results were interpreted as reflecting two different core attitudes towards life under stressful circumstances: a life-destroying tendency in the suicidal subjects vs. a life-preserving tendency in the accident-victim subjects. These two core attitudes indicate different modes of defense: defensive detachment in the suicidal patients and avoidance of stress in the accident victims.
The Holocaust was the most traumatic experience to occur in the 20th century. The present study aims to assess elderly Holocaust survivors in a long-stay psychiatric setting. Data concerning hospitalized survivors were gathered from medical records, repeated interviews (Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III [SCID]) with patients, and family interviews. Subjects were all inpatients at Israel's largest psychiatric hospital, Abarbanel Mental Health Center. Patients hospitalized in the same setting who did not undergo the Holocaust were the comparison group. Of the center's 670 beds, 74 (11%) are designated for psychogeriatric patients. Forty-four (59.5%) patients in the psychogeriatric section are Holocaust survivors. There were 41 women and three men in our series. Mean age of the group was 76.2 years (range, 54 to 92). The most frequent diagnosis was schizophrenia (22 of 44). Nearly 30% had been hospitalized chronically since the Holocaust. Mean current hospitalization time was 11.2 years (range, 1 to 45). The frequent diagnosis in the comparison group was also schizophrenia (20 of 30), but indexes of chronicity were more favorable. The severity and the chronic, deteriorating course of illness in this subgroup of survivors may be due to the massive life-long psychologic disintegration imposed by the Holocaust.
Collecting is a normal phenomenon, in contrast with pathological collecting, or hoarding. Is hoarding a different phenomenon, or an extreme aspect existing on the same spectrum of behavior? How may these phenomena be understood when they are part of everyone's repertoire on one hand, but may be symptomatic of a grave disturbance on the other hand. An overview and a discussion of hoarding are presented.
Thirty-nine patients with acute low back pain were treated with amitriptyline (150 mg/d) or acetaminophen (2,000 mg/d) in a controlled double-blind design for 5 weeks. Both groups revealed mild depression, normal coping, and increased anxiety at the beginning, with significant improvement in anxiety state and pain at the end of treatment. A repeated measures analysis of variance demonstrated that amitriptyline was more effective than acetaminophen in reducing pain intensity from the second week of treatment. Age and depression were the only significant pretreatment predictors of posttreatment pain. The study evaluates the significance of these findings.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
This study investigated the tolerance for physical pain in suicidal subjects. Suicidal, psychiatric nonsuicidal, and normal young males and females were administered pain measures including electric shocks, appraisal of shocks, and a measure of thermal pain. Additional study variables included diagnosis, past suicide attempts, severity of suicidal intent, and length of hospitalization. Suicidal individuals showed higher tolerance for pain and appraised the pain as less intense than the other groups, regardless of diagnosis, length of hospitalization, and motivation to participate in the study. These findings were explained as a result of dissociative processes inherent in the development of suicidal tendencies and in terms of pain management strategies.