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Psychotic Symptoms in Children and Adolescents

Assesment, Differential Diagnosis, and Treatment

• By Claudio Cepeda

• Price: $79.95
• Binding: Hardback
• Pages: 552
• Published by: Routledge
• Publication Date: 11th October 2006
• ISBN: 978-0-415-95364-1

About the Book

Psychotic Symptoms in Children and Adolescents demystifies the interviewing diagnostic process of psychosis in children and adolescents and provides a valuable resource for treatment. Psychotic symptoms have traditionally been rationalized and disregarded as products of the child’s imagination. There has been a professional reluctance to acknowledge that children could suffer from severe psychotic disorders akin to adult subjects, and that these symptoms merit a comprehensive and systematic evaluation.

This book offers a useful guide to the interviewing process, a review of differential diagnosis, and an overview on psychosocial interventions. It deals also with the use of antipsychotic drugs, beginning with issues related to their use in the field, followed by a review of literature on the subject, atypical side effects, and implementation throughout treatment.

The book fills a vacuum in the field of child and adolescent psychosis, and will have a broad appeal and interest to general psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, to child and adolescent psychiatrists, and many other mental health professionals working with disturbed children and adolescents.

Reviews

"This comprehensive text provides a most welcome overview of psychosis and psychotic conditions in children and adolescents. With its strong focus on clinical practice this volume summarizes aspects of assessment, psychiatric examination and differential diagnosis. The chapters on treatment are similarly well conceptualized and will help both beginning clinicians and more advanced clinicians interested in expanding their experience. This volume will be of great interest to clinicians who work with children and adolescents with severe mental disorders." - Fred R. Volkmar M.D., Yale University School of Medicine, USA

"Cepeda succeeds in maintaining a clear focus on clinical relevance in his discussions of the multiple facets of psychotic symptoms and provides plentiful references for readers seeking more systematic reviews of various topics. Psychiatrists as well as mental health clinicians in other disciplines will find this book an excellent place to turn when seeking help in determining whether the symptoms of a child or adolescent patient may have crossed the line from reality into psychosis and what to do about it. In its steadfast insistence on the care of the whole patient from symptom to side effect, this single-authored volume convincingly demonstrates the role of psychiatry as an integrative medical specialty." - A. Reese Abright, M.D., in Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, USA

Table of Contents

Contents: Preface. Acknowledgements. Overview of Psychotic Symptoms in Childhood. Psychiatric Assessment. Examination of Other Psychotic Symptoms. Examination of Mood and Affect. Aids in the Diagnostic Process. Differential Diagnosis of Psychotic Disorders: Medical Conditions Associated With Psychosis. Differential Diagnosis of Psychotic Disorders: Psychiatric Disorders Associated With Psychosis. Etiology and Pathogenesis. Psychosocial Interventions for Chronic Psychosis. Psychopharmacological Treatment: Considerations in the Clinical Use of Antipsychotic Medications. Mood Stabilizing Medications in the Treatment of Psychotic Disorders of Children and Adolescents. Overview of Atypical Antipsychotics. Mood Stabilizers and Atypical Antipsychotic Side Effects. Treatment of Atypicals Side Effects. Appendix A: Drug Interactions. Appendix B: Conventional or Classic Antipsychotics. Bibliography.

About the Author(s)

Claudio Cepeda, M.D., is a child and adolescent psychiatrist in private practice and member of the Southwest Psychiatric Physicians, as well as Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in San Antonio. His first book, The Psychiatric Interview of Children and Adolescents, has been translated to Japanese, Slovac and Spanish. He has broad clinical experience in inpatient, partial, hospital and outpatient preadolescent and adolescent psychiatric practice, and in teaching child and adolescent interviewing to general psychiatric residents and fellows in child and adolescent psychiatry.