SEMINAR 9: New developments and treatments in psychiatry

Context:

Focussing on patient Mr. Dupré, one of the millions psychiatric patients in the world, this seminar will elaborate many aspects of pharmacotherapy in psychiatry. Mr. Dupré is overweight, smokes his cigarettes and when he is upset he takes Cannabis. He uses quite a lot of medicines. Not all the reasons for the prescriptions are clear. There are ECG and laboratory findings (TDM, clinical chemistry and genotyping). Mr. Dupré does some physical exercise and is well informed about his medicines (robot-packages, leaflets, E-Health, group sessions).

The main topics of this seminar will be:

1. adverse drug events and interactions  with a focus on: which are important and what to do, how to detect and how to prevent; which role does Cannabis play in schizophrenia,
2. how to handle polypharmacy  with a focus on incidence, character and reasons of polyprescribing antipsychotics and anticholinergics,
3. how to inform the patient and the doctor in a modern way, with a focus on: cooperation, www.switchingantipsychotics.eu,www.switchingantidepressants.eu,, www.choiceandmedication.org.uk , video clips and consequences).
4. somatic problems, receptors and TDM with a focus on: character, incidence, prevention and consequences; which genes are involved; what about polymorphisms and genotyping,
5. Innovations and controversies with a focus on: can MRI predict pharmacotherapy; genetics; influence of psychotherapy and should we give money to patients to improve adherence.

Teaching goals:

The programme is designed to:

• advance hospital pharmacists knowledge and skills concerning medication and psychiatric patients
• describe the role and action of the hospital pharmacist in optimising pharmacy care to patients.
• focus on many aspects of pharmacotherapy related to a common psychiatric patient.

Learning objectives:

After the seminar delegates will be able to:

• detect and prevent important drug interactions- understand the reasons of polypharmacy and non-compliance
• apply the consequences of polymorphism- describe somatic side-effects of psychofarmaca.
• put into practice modern ways of informing the patient