Speed ??of onset of initial ...

Rapid onset of initial clinical response in the treatment of venlafaxine is associated with a number of important implications for clinical practice. Firstly, it is associated with lower suicide risk, which is extremely important for patients with depression, especially given the facts that 45 to 60% of suicides committed patients with depression and suicide in Russia (according to WHO, 2003) ranked first (since 1998 in our country each year not less than 51 thousand cases of suicide). Second, the rapidity of onset of antidepressant effect is correlated with a decrease in the probability of failure of therapy, which often occur in the first weeks of treatment for patients' perceptions of treatment failure. Third, the rapidity of onset of effect causes reduction in the risk of hospitalization in ambulatory patients. And finally, a rapid onset of therapeutic action of antidepressants reduces the overall cost of treatment. Moreover, the ongoing discussion about the condition of quality and durability of remission fast onset of initial clinical response. Requires special mention efficacy of venlafaxine in anxious depression. This fact, proved in many placebo-controlled studies, initiated the use of the drug in a broad range of anxiety and phobic disorders. Currently, he is already approved by the FDA for use in social phobia and generalized anxiety disorder in adults, as well as in panic disorder (note that this is the first anti-depressant since 2002, passed by the FDA for this purpose). The impression is that the expansion of indications for the use of venlafaxine has just begun. He has already established itself as a highly effective drug for the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, and depressive disorders in children and adolescents for the treatment of headaches, stress and migraines, cocaine addiction, comorbid with depressive disorders, trichotillomania, attention deficit disorder, fibromyalgia and chronic pain, including in children. In our country, the use of venlafaxine has just begun. Until it is registered only for treatment of patients with depressive disorders. But now begun advanced clinical trials of this drug, followed by a great future. Article published in Pharmaceutical Journal

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia - mental illness with a long chronic course, leading to the typical personality changes (schizophrenic defect). For this disease is characterized by a kind of discordant (splitting, dissociation), thinking, emotions and other mental functions. The term schizophrenia literally means "split mind" ("schizo" in Greek - splitting, "Fran" - soul, mind). Schizophrenic personality changes are expressed in the growing isolation, separated from others, emotional impoverishment, decreased activity and purposeful activity, the loss of the unity of mental processes and peculiar disorders of thinking.