[Neurological diseases and suicide: from neurobiology to hopelessness]. / Maladies neurologiques et suicide: de la neurobiologie au manque d'espoir.

Neurologic diseases expose at a high risk of suicidal behaviors and they constitute a privileged domain for exploring the heterogeneity of underlying mechanisms. They are in fact characterized by strictly biological injuries that may be involved in cerebral systems considered at the basis of neurobiological vulnerability for suicide. At the same time, they oblige a numberof existential topics to emerge, as the hopelessness in respect of several particularly severe conditions without an etiologic treatment. A clinical approach reserving an unconditional listening can prevent a suicidal attempt. Furthermore, it can illustrate the role of the liaison's psychiatrist, who tries to transform a hopelessness situation into a patient's personal questioning and try to be present when therapeutic action is not longer possible.

[Multidisciplinary care during peripartum: mother-baby dyad in the center of the relational constellations]. / Prise en charge multidisciplinaire du péripartum: le lien mère-bébé au centre des constellations relationnelles.

Pregnancy and new motherhood may be crisis and vulnerability periods and therefore increase the risk of psychiatric disorders. Liaison psychiatry plays a major role in the first psychiatric evaluation of mothers in order to specify a diagnosis and to initiate a treatment when necessary. This article describes the care of mothers suffering from peripartum psychiatric disorders by the liaison psychiatry in the maternity ward, an outpatient practice, as well as an in-patient care unit where mother and baby can stay together. The multidisciplinary approach and its constellation around the mother-baby dyad are detailed and two clinical cases are reported.

[Benefits of routine psychological counselling for patients living with HIV]. / Bénéfices d'un accompagnement psychologique des patients vivant avec le VIH.

Despite improvement of life expectancy of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infected people since the implementation of antiretroviral treatment, psychological suffering prevails and needs to be considered as part of the treatment to guarantee its efficiency. Mental disorders and social stigmatization substantially affect patients' quality of life and their adherence to treatment. The article details the benefits of a routine screening for mental disorders within this population, who is often reluctant to consult psychiatric services. The different treatments provided by the Geneva University Hospital (HUG) are introduced. A clinical case report illustrates the relevance of a multidisciplinary care program and the role of the liaison psychiatry in this field.

[Prostate cancer and androgen deprivation: benefits of psychological counseling]. / Cancer de la prostate et déprivation androgénique: bénéfices d'un accompagnement psychologique.

Androgen deprivation is a therapeutic option for patients with prostate cancer, however with a range of side effects that negatively affects their physical and psychological condition. A multidisciplinary care program, ADAPP ("Androgenic deprivation in prostate cancer patients"), has been created with a special focus on managing these side effects. This article describes the intervention of the liaison psychiatry within this program, with care options ranging from psychological support to intensive psychotherapy to address patients' intrapsychic dynamics throughout this care program. Clinical cases are reported to illustrate the relevance and the necessity of this specialized counselling.

[Interdisciplinary treatment of chronic low back pain: psychological aspects and personality traits]. / Traitement interdisciplinaire des lombalgies chroniques: aspects psychologiques et de personnalité.

Evidence on chronic low back pain treatments stresses the need for a multidimensional approach that aims a biopsychosocial rehabilitation. The caregiver team of the rheumatology division of the University Hospitals of Geneva has successfully applied this approach over the last years and this article emphasizes the value of a close collaboration with the division of liaison psychiatry. The use of cognitive-behavioral and psycho-educational techniques guaranties the definition of patient-centred and measurable treatment objectives. The inclusion of a psychotherapy group promotes free expression and sharing of psychological distress. Assessment of personality traits allows for considering the global nature of the patients rather than merely aiming the normalization of their deviant aspects.

Review: Contact sport-related chronic traumatic encephalopathy in the elderly: clinical expression and structural substrates.

Professional boxers and other contact sport athletes are exposed to repetitive brain trauma that may affect motor functions, cognitive performance, emotional regulation and social awareness. The term of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) was recently introduced to regroup a wide spectrum of symptoms such as cerebellar, pyramidal and extrapyramidal syndromes, impairments in orientation, memory, language, attention, information processing and frontal executive functions, as well as personality changes and behavioural and psychiatric symptoms. Magnetic resonance imaging usually reveals hippocampal and vermis atrophy, a cavum septum pellucidum, signs of diffuse axonal injury, pituitary gland atrophy, dilated perivascular spaces and periventricular white matter disease. Given the partial overlapping of the clinical expression, epidemiology and pathogenesis of CTE and Alzheimer's disease (AD), as well as the close association between traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) and neurofibrillary tangle formation, a mixed pathology promoted by pathogenetic cascades resulting in either CTE or AD has been postulated. Molecular studies suggested that TBIs increase the neurotoxicity of the TAR DNA-binding protein 43 (TDP-43) that is a key pathological marker of ubiquitin-positive forms of frontotemporal dementia (FTLD-TDP) associated or not with motor neurone disease/amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Similar patterns of immunoreactivity for TDP-43 in CTE, FTLD-TDP and ALS as well as epidemiological correlations support the presence of common pathogenetic mechanisms. The present review provides a critical update of the evolution of the concept of CTE with reference to its neuropathological definition together with an in-depth discussion of the differential diagnosis between this entity, AD and frontotemporal dementia.

Longitudinal analysis of cognitive performances and structural brain changes in late-life bipolar disorder.

OBJECTIVES: Cross-sectional studies in bipolar disorder (BD) suggested the presence of cognitive deficits and subtle magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) changes in limbic areas that may persist at euthymic stages. Whether or not cognitive and MRI changes represent stable attributes of BD or evolve with time is still matter of debate. To address this issue, we performed a 2-year longitudinal study including detailed neuropsychological and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) analyses of 15 euthymic older BD patients and 15 controls. METHODS: Neuropsychological evaluation concerned working memory, episodic memory, processing speed, and executive functions. MRI analyses included voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analysis of gray matter including region of interest (ROI) analysis and tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) analysis of white matter of diffusion tensor imaging derived fractional anisotropy (FA). RESULTS: BD patients displayed significantly lower performances in processing speed and episodic memory but not in working memory and executive functions compared to controls. However, BD patients did not differ from controls in the mean trajectory of cognitive changes during the 2 years follow-up. In the same line, longitudinal gray matter (VBM, ROI) and white matter (TBSS FA) changes did not differ between BD patients and controls. CONCLUSION: The lack of distinction between BD patients and controls in respect to the 2-year changes in cognition and MRI findings supports the notion that this disorder does not have a significant adverse impact on cognitive and brain aging. From this point of view, the present results convey a message of hope for patients suffering from BD.

[Chronic pain in elderly people: psychosocial dimension]. / Douleurs chroniques chez les personnes âgées: dimensions psychologiques.

Chronic pain in elderly people requires to take into account somatic co-morbidities as well as its psychosocial dimensions. Chronic pain often represents a distress signal addressed to the environment and the care providers. Psychological suffering or mood disorders can be presented in the form of somatic complaints often associated with functional impairments, sometimes severe. Therapeutic care has to address functionality through an image-enhancing approach aiming to summon the patients' resources. The treatment of a concomitant depressive state necessitates a true commitment from the therapist. Its benefits are documented in elderly patients. Analgesic treatment as a whole will seek in particular to restore feelings of self-esteem and help the patient recover a good quality of life.

[Day hospital end therapeutic community: an effective care for the elderly psychiatric out patients]. / Hôpital de jour et communauté thérapeutique: un soin efficace pour les patients psychiatriques ages.

The effectiveness of psychiatric day hospital care in elderly patients remains disputed. Based on a therapeutic community approach, psychotherapeutic day hospital treatment was evaluated in 122 elderly depressed patients and 76 demented patients suffering from behavioural and psychological symptoms. Neuropsychiatric symptoms, quality of life and therapeutic community progress were assessed at day hospital admission and discharge. In absence of any change in pharmacological treatment, results show a significant reduction of depressive and neuropsychiatric symptoms as well as improved adhesion to therapeutic community treatment, even in the demented patients. Results further reveal improved mental quality of life and subjective perception of clinical progress in depressed patients.

Disappointed Love and Suicide: A Randomized Controlled Trial of "Abandonment Psychotherapy" Among Borderline Patients.

To determine whether ambulatory psychotherapy targeted to abandonment experiences and fears can reduce suicidality and improve outcome in borderline patients referred to the emergency room with major depressive disorder and self-destructive behavior severe enough to require medical/surgical treatment and a brief psychiatric hospitalization. A total of 170 subjects were randomized at hospital discharge into three treatment groups: treatment as usual (TAU), abandonment psychotherapy delivered by certified psychotherapists, and abandonment psychotherapy delivered by nurses. Assessments were performed before randomization and at 3-month follow-up. Continued suicidality and other outcome measures were significantly worse in the treatment-as-usual as compared to both abandonment psychotherapy groups, but there were no differences between the two psychotherapy groups. These results suggest the efficacy of manualized psychotherapy that specifically targets the abandonment fears and experiences that are so common as precipitants to suicidal and self-destructive acts in borderline patients. It does not appear that formal psychotherapy training is associated with better outcomes.

Clinical validity of A beta-protein deposition staging in brain aging and Alzheimer disease.

Braak's neurofibrillary tangle (NFT) pathology staging system of Alzheimer disease (AD) correlates generally with clinical data. Recently, Braak's group proposed an Abeta-protein staging based on the progression of amyloid deposition in the medial temporal lobe. To examine its clinical validity and evaluate whether it adds predictive power to NFT-based staging, we performed a study comparing both neuropathological classifications with clinical dementia rating scale (CDR) scores in a large autopsy series. The 2 neuropathological staging systems were strongly correlated. Their association with clinical severity was highly significant. However, the strength of the relationship was greater for NFT-based staging. It accounted for 26.5% of the variability in clinical severity, Abeta-protein-based staging for 13.0%, and age for 4.4%. Compared to NFT-based staging, the Abeta-protein-based system was less able to distinguish mild cognitive changes from dementia and showed marked overlap among the various stages of cognitive decline. In a multivariate model, NFT and age together accounted for 27.2% of the clinical variability and the addition of Abeta-protein deposition staging could only explain an extra 2.9%. Our data support the close relationship between NFT progression and amyloid formation within the medial temporal lobe proposed by Braak's group but demonstrate the limited value of Abeta-protein deposition staging in terms of clinicopathological correlations.

Improving ARTMAP learning through variable vigilance.

This paper presents a mechanism to vary the vigilance parameter in the RePART fuzzy neural network. This mechanism helps to smooth out the problem of category proliferation which affects ARTMAP-based networks. Empirical experiments show that the use of variable vigilance improves the performance of the RePART model while, at the same time, requiring a less complex structure.

Cortical microinfarcts and demyelination affect cognition in cases at high risk for dementia.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the possible synergistic effect of microvascular lesions with mild Alzheimer disease (AD) pathology in mixed cases. METHODS: We assessed the cognitive impact of cortical microinfarcts, deep white matter and periventricular demyelination, as well as diffuse and focal gliosis in a large series of 43 prospectively evaluated autopsy cases scored Braak neurofibrillary tangle stage III, but without macroscopic vascular pathology or substantial non-AD, nonvascular microscopic lesions. We included bilateral assessment of all types of microvascular lesions and used multivariate models that control for the possible confounding effect of age and amyloid beta-protein (Abeta) deposits. RESULTS: Only cortical microinfarcts and periventricular demyelination were significantly associated with the Clinical Dementia Rating Scale (CDR) score. In a univariate model, the cortical microinfarct score explained 9% of the variability in CDR scores and periventricular demyelination score 7.3%. Abeta deposition explained only 3.5% of the CDR variability. In a logistic regression model, both variables were strongly associated with the presence of dementia (R = 0.45; p < 0.05). When the CDR sum of the boxes was used, Abeta staging explained 8.9% of cognitive variability, the addition of cortical microinfarct predicted an extra 15.5%, and that of periventricular demyelination an extra 9%. CONCLUSIONS: Cortical microinfarcts and, to a lesser degree, periventricular demyelination contribute to the cognitive decline in individuals at high risk for dementia. Both should be taken into account when defining the neuropathologic criteria for mixed dementia.

Clinical validity of Braak neuropathological staging in the oldest-old.

Several studies have demonstrated a good correlation between clinical severity and Braak's neuropathological staging in Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, nonagenarians and centenarians display a different pattern of cortical vulnerability to the neurodegenerative process compared to younger elderly, and it is not known whether correlations between clinical severity and neuropathological stages remain valid in this age group. To address this issue we compared Clinical Dementia Rating scale (CDR) scores and Braak stages in 116 patients over 90 years of age with either no cognitive impairment or very mild to severe AD. There is a strong positive correlation between CDR scores and Braak staging (Spearman coefficient = 0.66; P < 0.01). However, neuropathological staging does not distinguish cases with normal cognition (CDR 0) from those with mild cognitive changes (CDR 0.5). Unlike younger cohorts, Braak stages I and II are frequently associated with questionable dementia in this age group. Braak stage III overlaps with all CDR levels and correlates poorly with cognitive function. Braak stages IV or greater are consistently associated with at least mild dementia. Consistent with our previous neuropathological analyses of nonagenarians and centenarians, the present data suggest that the substantial involvement of the hippocampus which characterizes Braak stage IV is a key step in the development of overt clinical signs of dementia in the oldest-old. Moreover, they indicate that Braak staging represents a broad concept of the evolution of neurofibrillary tangles rather than a precise hierarchical model associated with a stepwise deterioration of cognitive abilities near the upper limit of life.