Electroconvulsive Therapy in Children and Adolescents in Germany-A Case Series From 3 University Hospitals.

OBJECTIVE: Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a well-established, safe, and efficacious treatment for severe psychiatric disorders. In children and adolescents, it is used much less frequently than in adults, likely because of a lack of knowledge. METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed all patients aged 12 to 17 years who completed a course of ECT at 3 psychiatric university hospitals in Germany between 2010 and 2020. Clinical Global Impression Severity (CGI-S) scores were assessed based on electronic medical records. Changes in CGI-S scores were assessed using a paired samples t test. Predictors for response and remission were assessed using binomial logistic regression. RESULTS: We included 32 patients. The CGI-S scores improved significantly from before to after ECT treatment (6.9 vs 3.9, t = 10.0, P < 0.01). A total of 40.6% of patients responded (CGI ≤ 3) and 21.9% remitted (CGI ≤ 2). The number of ineffective medication trials in the 6 months before ECT treatment was significantly associated with response (odds ratio, 0.54; P = 0.028) and remission (odds ratio, 0.31; P = 0.048). Five patients reported subjective cognitive adverse effects, 2 patients exhibited a prolonged seizure, 1 patient reported headaches, and 1 patient experienced a mild allergic reaction after anesthesia with etomidate. A total of 65.6% of patients experienced no adverse effects at all. CONCLUSIONS: This retrospective analysis found ECT to be effective and safe in children and adolescents irrespective of their main diagnosis. The reported data point to the importance of an early use of ECT for severe psychiatric diseases in child and adolescent psychiatry.

[Use of electroconvulsive therapy in adolescents - A retrospective survey on 12- to 17-year-old patients at three university hospitals in Germany]. / Elektrokonvulsionstherapie im Kindes- und Jugendalter.

Use of electroconvulsive therapy in adolescents - A retrospective survey on 12- to 17-year-old patients at three university hospitals in Germany Abstract. Abstract. Background: Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a highly effective and well-researched therapy in adult psychiatry and has been successfully used especially as a treatment for severe depressive, catatonic, and psychotic disorders. Although severe disease progressions also occur in child and adolescent psychiatry, ECT is used much less frequently there. This may be because hardly any data have been collected on the use, effectiveness, and tolerability of ECT in child and adolescent psychiatric patients. This article outlines the application, effectiveness, and tolerability of ECT when applied to young adolescents in Germany. Methods: A retrospective survey on ECT in 29 patients under 18 years of age was conducted at three German university centers. All documented cases were recorded and evaluated for effectiveness and tolerability. In addition, a comprehensive PubMed-based database search was carried out. Results and conclusions: Internationally, there are no meta-analyses or randomized controlled studies and hardly any published cases on electroconvulsive therapy in German child and adolescent psychiatry. Our data on ECT show high efficacy in previously treatment-resistant and severely ill patients. Side effects occurred rarely. There was no evidence of differences between adults and adolescents in indication (depression, catatonia, schizophrenia), effectiveness, tolerability, and negative predictors of response to ECT. The results also suggest that the use of ECT in adolescents should be considered earlier in the treatment course.

[Overweight/Obesity of Children and Adolescents and its Association with Internalising and Externalising Disorders]. / Übergewicht von Kindern und Jugendlichen und sein Zusammenhang mit internalisierenden und externalisierenden psychischen Auffälligkeiten.

Overweight/Obesity of Children and Adolescents and its Association with Internalising and Externalising Disorders Research in child and adolescent psychiatry increasingly deals with the association between mental disorder and weight. This paper provides an overview of national and international studies on the relationship between body composition and mental illness in children and adolescents, with a focus on the representation of individual internalizing and externalizing disturbance patterns. The majority of studies in this area are based on the so-called one-compartment model of body composition in terms of the Body Mass Index (BMI) or on the classification as "overweight" or "obese". Associations between mental disorders and body composition were described in two directions: On one hand, both externalising and internalising symptoms are associated with obesity, and on the other hand there are also more psychopathological symptoms among overweight children and adolescents. Longitudinal studies suggest effects in both directions. While externalising symptoms and weight are thought to be related from infancy on, this connection seems to be evident for internalising disorders not earlier than for early school age. It is also known from the literature that psychopharmacological medication affects weight and body growth - especially with psychostimulants, but also with neuroleptics and antidepressants. We found only a few studies describing the relationship between body composition and psyche in more complex models with two or more compartments.

[Electroconvulsive Therapy - A beneficial and well tolerated therapy in children and adolescents with schizophrenia]. / Elektrokonvulsionstherapie ­ bei Kindern und Jugendlichen mit Schizophrenie wirksam und gut verträglich.

We report four cases of 12- to 17-year-old patients with schizophrenia, two of them suffering from catatonia, which were treated by ECT. Under a combined treatment with either ziprasidone or clozapine, and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), they improved markedly. Severity and course of acute schizophrenia were evaluated by the Brief Psychiatric rating Scale (BPRS), severity and course of catatonia were evaluated with the Bush-Francis Catatonia Rating Scale (BFCRS). This article underlines the benefit, the safety and the tolerability of ECT in younger patients with schizophrenic disorders.

[Psychogenic Aphonia - Succesfull Multiprofessional Treatment of a 13-Year-Old Girl - A Case Report]. / Psychogene Aphonie ­ erfolgreiche multiprofessionelle Behandlung eines 13-jährigen Mädchens ­ ein Kurzbeitrag aus der Praxis.

Psychogenic Aphonia - Succesfull Multiprofessional Treatment of a 13-Year-Old Girl - A Case Report Psychogenic aphonia is a rather rare disorder with a point prevalence of 0.4 %. It appears more frequently in females than in males. There are only few reports in the scientific literature about children affected by psychogenic aphonia. The diagnostical and therapeutical approach must be multimodal. The case reported here describes a 13 year-old girl with a psychogenic aphonia, the course of her illness und the efforts of treatment until full recovery of voice and speech.

[Comparison of Inpatients in Child Psychiatry in Rostock Between 1960 and 2015]. / Vergleich der stationären Kinderpsychiatrie 1960 und 2015 in Rostock.

Comparison of Inpatients in Child Psychiatry in Rostock Between 1960 and 2015 Since its beginnings, child psychiatry has been subject to permanent change due to social changes and thus different expectations of the field, developments in diagnostics, therapy and the respective classification systems. After 1949 Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) underwent an independent and somatically oriented development. Although assumed that there was systematic injustice in inpatient facilities of child psychiatry in the GDR, no study from this period has been published to our knowledge up to now. The work presented here begins to close this gap by comparing data from 1960 with current data (2015) of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Department at the Rostock Medical Center. Significant differences between results from 1960 and 2015 indicate a currently higher number of admissions, only half the length of stay, an alignment in the gender ratio, a trend towards adolescent patients, a shift away from the 1960 dominant intelligence impairment towards behavioural and emotional disorders, a higher proportion of children and adolescents treated with drugs, and more specialist follow-up treatments after the inpatient stay in 2015. We found no evidence of forced medication in 1960. The discussion also addresses the danger of a solitary development of child psychiatry away from a medical to a more social psychiatric, educational and therapeutic subject.

[Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) of a 15-year-old female patient suffering from a severe delusional depression: a case report]. / Fallbericht einer 15-jährigen Patientin mit einer schweren wahnhaften Depression, behandelt mit Elektrokonvulsionstherapie.

Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) of a 15-year-old female patient suffering from a severe delusional depression: a case report Abstract. OBJECTIVE: Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) is a modern therapy of severe psychiatric disorders. However, ECT is rarely used in treating children and adolescents with psychiatric disorders. This case report refers about a 15-year-old female patient suffering from severe depressive episodes with psychotic symptoms treated with ECT. METHOD: After unsuccessful combined behavioral therapy and medication, the patient received a total of 11 ECT treatments with right unilateral electrode placement. The severity of depressive symptoms was assessed by self (BDI-II) and external (HDRS21) scores before, during and after treatment. RESULTS: A rapid decline of depressive symptoms was observed. CONCLUSION: ECT provides a safe and effective method for the treatment of severe depressive disorders in childhood and adolescence and should be included earlier than usual into the standard therapeutic concepts.

A de novo nonsense mutation in ZBTB18 plus a de novo 15q13.3 microdeletion in a 6-year-old female.

ZBTB18 has been proposed as candidate gene for microcephaly and abnormalities of the corpus callosum based on overlapping microdeletions of 1q43q44. More recently, de novo mutations of ZBTB18 have been identified in patients with syndromic and non-syndromic intellectual disability. Heterozygous microdeletions of 15q13.3 encompassing the candidate gene CHRNA7 are associated with developmental delay or intellectual disability with speech problems, hypotonia, and seizures. They are characterized by significant variability and reduced penetrance. We report on a patient with a de novo ZBTB18 nonsense mutation and a de novo 15q13.3 microdeletion, both in a heterozygous state, identified by next generation sequencing and array-CGH. The 6-year-old girl showed global developmental delay, absent speech, therapy-refractory seizures, ataxia, muscular hypotonia, and discrete facial dysmorphisms. Almost all of these features have been reported for both genetic aberrations, but the severity could hardly been explained by the microdeletion 15q13.3 alone. We assume an additive effect of haploinsufficiency of ZBTB18 and CHRNA7 in our patient. Assembling the features of our patient and the published patients, we noted that only one of them showed mild anomalies of the corpus callosum. Moreover, we hypothesize that nonsense mutations of ZBTB18 are associated with a more severe phenotype than missense mutations. This report indicates that haploinsufficiency of additional genes beside ZBTB18 causes the high frequency of corpus callosum anomalies in patients with microdeletions of 1q43q44 and underlines the importance of an NGS-based molecular diagnostic in complex phenotypes.

[Pilot study of psychiatric and social aspects of children and adolescents with fragile X syndrome]. / Pilotstudie zu psychiatrischen und sozialen Aspekten bei Kindern und Jugendlichen mit Fragilem-X-Syndrom (FRX).

Objective: The study describes the burden of psychosocial risks of mental illnesses and the ways in which children and adolescents with fragile X syndrome (FRX) can be treated. Method: Data from a sample of 34 patients with FRX younger than 18 years stemming from a prospective multicenter (n = 11) registry study (EXPLAIN) were analyzed with regard to psychosocial burden and Treatment. Results: One third of all participants reported having relatives who suffer from FRX. The majority of participants were suffering themselves from one kind or another mental or neurological problems. Younger participants (< 14 years) tended to suffer from atactic disorders, epileptic seizures, and autistic symptoms. These disorders were usually treated by psychotropic drugs supplemented by logopedic therapies and occupational therapies (more than once a month). In our sample, 96.3 % of the younger patients and more than 57.1 % of the older patients were still living with their parents. Conclusions: Patients with FRX often suffer from additional neurological and mental disorders. For that reason, they should be diagnosed and treated early on.

[A Multi-arm Placebo-controlled Study with Glutamic Acid Conducted in Rostock in 1953/1954]. / Eine Rostocker Placebo-kontrollierte mehrarmige Studie mit Glutaminsäure bei Kindern und Jugendlichen 1953/54.

A Multi-arm Placebo-controlled Study with Glutamic Acid Conducted in Rostock in 1953/1954 Glutamic acid was commonly used in the treatment of intellectually disabled children in the 50s. Koch reported first results of an observation of 140 children treated with glutamic acid in 1952. In this line is the multi-arm placebo-controlled study reported here. The original study protocols were available. 58 children with speech problems who attending a school of special needs received glutamic acid, or vitamin B, or St.-John's-wort. The effect of glutamic acid was in few cases an improvement of attention. On the other hand restlessness and stutter increased. The majority of all reported a weight loss. The treatment with vitamin B showed a positive effect concerning concentration. The treatment with St.-John's wort was stopped caused by headache and vomiting in eight of nine cases. The results of the study reported here are unpublished. The reason may be that until the 60s the effects of glutamic acid in the treatment of intellectually disabled children were in generally overestimated.

[Mental Health in Children from Families Seeking Asylum in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania 2007-2009 - Personal and Contextual Risk Factors]. / Psychische Gesundheit von Kindern aus asylsuchenden Familien in den Jahren 2007­2009 ­ Person- und kontextseitige Risikofaktoren.

Mental Health in Children from Families Seeking Asylum in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania 2007-2009 - Personal and Contextual Risk Factors The study presented describes severity and conditions of various psychiatric symptoms in children from families seeking refuge in Germany 2007-2009 and registered in the province of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Mothers of 58 children (aged 12 years on average, 23 girls, 33 boys) answered the items of the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach, 1991). First, the burden of disease among refugee children was compared to standard burdens of German children. Second, the extent of symptoms was predicted by person- and context-related factors. Internalizing symptoms were predicted by more proximal factors, such as parental burden of stress and parental education. Externalizing symptoms and social problems were rather predicted by the length of stay in Germany, the reason for migration, the school career and parental education. On one hand, the study underscores the immediate need for intervention among refugee parents and children. On the other hand, structural factors in the country of arrival (length of stay, schooling) play an important role.

Polypharmacy in the treatment of subjects with intellectual disability.

People with intellectual disabilities often suffer from mental disorders or display challenging behavior. For both impairments, treatment with more than one psychopharmacological drug is common, although little is known about efficacy and side effects of polypharmacological treatment. The paper reviews studies on treatment of people with intellectual disability (ID) with more than one psychoactive drug. Many studies rely on poor evidence and are supplemented with data from our own research. Risks and benefits of different combinations containing neuroleptics are listed. Ethical considerations for the use of different drugs combined are discussed. The use of combinations of neuroleptics on people with ID should be carried out with great care, since side effects may be amplified in people with ID, depending on the combination.

[International aspects of inclusion in schools]. / Internationale Aspekte der Verankerung inklusiver Unterrichtskonzepte.

The term inclusion (=admittance, involvement) is used almost synonymously for the concept of the joint schooling of children with and without intellectual disabilities, language disabilities, physical handicaps, or mental disorders. This article addresses the current state of inclusion in Germany as well as the international situation, such as the Salamanca Declaration of the UNESCO, the «Individuals with Disabilities Act¼ (IDEA) in the United States as well as European developments, particularly in Great Britain, Austria, and Russia. Even though, from a political perspective, the decision in favor of inclusion seems irreversible, there appears to be a lack an agreement on the modality and timeframe. Thus, the average percentage of students with special education needs in Germany amounts to only 28.2%. The reasons behind this situation are presently being analyzed and discussed. A question of key importance concerns the benefit for the persons concerned, since that should be the measure of the success of inclusion. This question will most likely be validly answered only for individual subgroups of disabilities. This field still requires extensive research.

[Children's and Adolescents' Mental Health in Residential Youth Care Settings]. / Seelische Gesundheit von Kindern und Jugendlichen in der stationären Jugendhilfe/Heimerziehung.

Children's and Adolescents' Mental Health in Residential Youth Care Settings Young people in residential youth care show a higher prevalence of mental problems than other children. This study gives an overview about the current situation of children and young people in the residential youth welfare service in Rostock (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany). In 2008 a similar study for the rural district Bad Doberan (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany) was conducted by Engel, Pätow, and Häßler (2009). This research was carried out with two measuring times over a period of eight months starting 2010. 48 young people and their keyworker as well as teachers answered Achenbach's self- and third-party-assessment forms for mental problems. Furthermore the Barrat-Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11) and the Youth-Psychopathic Inventory were used to get information about traits of Psychopathy. The result showed that 51 % of the young people rated themselves as clinical relevant. Female probands reached higher scores than the male. The third-party assessment displayed 45 % in clinical scores. These scores, presented by a dimensional assessment, confirm the higher prevalence of mental problems in residential youthcare settings. A long term improvement of the life situation of psychological stressed children and adolescents, who are living in residential care homes, can only be achieved by an intensive cooperation of all the involved institutions and professions. The basis for this is the realisation of this necessity as well as the deduction and implementation of appropriate curricula, which imparts the required abilities needed for the conversion in the respective professions.

[Sexual abuse prevention programs for individuals with mental retardation]. / Programme zur Prävention von sexuellem Missbrauch von Menschen mit geistiger Behinderung.

The paper reviews international research on sexual abuse prevention for individuals with mental retardation and programs implemented in Germany. Using Pubmed, PsycINFO, and various search engines, 263 studies and 128,080 search results for programs were retrieved, of which twelve international studies and six national programs met several inclusion criteria. Studies provided evidence for the effectiveness of prevention programs. Clinical significance, however, is restricted by methodological limitations. None of the programs found throughout Germany has yet been evaluated. Implications for future research in the field of sexual abuse prevention for children and adolescents with mental retardation are discussed.

Transcranial sonography of subcortical structures in tic/tourette disorder.

Functional neuroimaging studies demonstrate disinhibition of the cortico-striatal-thalamo-cortical circuit. However, structural imaging studies revealed conflicting results, some suggesting smaller volumes of the caudate nucleus (CN) in children with Gilles de la Tourette syndrome (TS). Here we wanted to find out whether transcranial sonography (TCS) detects alterations of raphe nuclei, substantia nigra, lenticular nucleus (LN), or CN in children with Tic disorder or TS (TIC/TS).The study included 25 treatment-naive children (age: 12.2 ± 2.5 years) with a DSM-V based diagnosis of Tic disorder or TS (10 subjects), without other psychiatric or neurologic diagnosis, and 25 healthy controls (age: 12.17 ± 2.57 years), matched for age and sex. Parental rating of behavioral, emotional abnormalities, somatic complaints and social competencies of the participants were assessed using the Child Behavior Check List (CBCL/4-18R). TCS of deep brain structures was conducted through the preauricular acoustic bone windows using a 2.5-MHz phased-array ultrasound system. Fisher's exact test and Mann-Whitney-U test were used for comparisons between TIC/TS patients and healthy volunteers. The number of participants with hyperechogenic area of left CN in the TIC/TS sample was increased, compared to the healthy control group. TIC/TS patients with hyperechogenic CN showed an increased occurrence of thought- and obsessive-compulsive problems. This TCS study revealed pathologic structural changes in CN, its higher occurrence in TIC/TS compared to healthy controls and the relation to comorbidity of thought problems. Further research should focus on the molecular cause of these alterations, probably the disturbed iron metabolism.

["Euthanasia" of children in Nazi Germany - the case of Günter Nevermannn. On the responsibility of childhood and adolescent psychiatry in the past, the present, and the future]. / Nationalsozialistische «Kindereuthanasie¼ - das Beispiel Günter Nevermann. Zur Verantwortung der Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie in Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft.

«Euthanasia¼ was the cynical euphemism used by the Nazis to refer to the systematic murder of hundreds of thousands of mentally sick and handicapped people between 1939 and 1945, at least 6,000 of whom were children. Based on the example of Günter Nevermann, this paper provides insight into the complex acts of registering, selecting, and targeting children labelled as "inferior" and "unworthy to live." This case clearly shows that Nazi doctors were not necessarily enmeshed in some tragic conflict. Rather, apparently without any qualms, they sacrificed the sick children who had been entrusted to their care, for the ideal of obtaining a "racially healthy corpus," a term used without being questioned. Most of the perpetrators were never brought to justice, and not a few of them later held managerial positions in child and adolescent psychiatry in the two German states. Many of them were members or even honorary members of the "Deutsche Gesellschaft für Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie, Psychosomatik und Psychotherapie e. V." in its present or previous form. We feel it is necessary to inform the public effectively about this state of affairs, to discover what really happened and to determine who was responsible.

[Teaching child and adolescent psychiatry and psychotherapy in Germany-inventory and implications]. / Studentische Lehre im Fach Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie und -psychotherapie in Deutschland.

OBJECTIVE: Dissemination of knowledge concerning normal and deviant development as well as child and adolescent psychiatric (CAP) disorders with a focus on diagnosis and treatment should represent an integral part of medical training at every medical school. Furthermore, it is of utmost importance that medical students acquire skills in communication and basic psychiatric assessment of children and adolescents. The article summarizes the current state of affairs of teaching in CAP in German medical schools. METHOD: All chairs of child and adolescent psychiatry were asked for detailed information on involvement in compulsory and noncompulsory medical training, scope of lectures in CAP, and courses for students of other disciplines. RESULTS: In 25 out of 26 medical schools with a chair for CAP this medical specialty is already part of compulsory medical training. CAP is either taught in independent lectures or is integrated into lectures on psychiatry, pediatrics, and/or psychosomatics. The main lecture of 1.2 semester periods per week on average (range 0.1 to 2, the equivalent of 2 to 28 teaching units per semester) is complemented by numerous additional offers (internships, advanced courses, compulsory elective subjects). The CAP elective tertial of the "practical year" (final year of medical school in Germany) can be completed at all medical faculties with a CAP chair. CAP is often taught students of other disciplines as well, e.g., psychology or education. CONCLUSIONS: Given the importance of CAP, the overall goal should be to anchor CAP as a required specialty in all 35 medical schools in Germany.