Posted by alan on August 29, 2002, at 0:20:06
In reply to Re: BENZO-INDUCED FATAL SEIZURES? (outdated) » alan, posted by Squiggles on August 28, 2002, at 13:20:20
> What can i say - maybe they have
> advanced in the understanding of
> how these drugs works; on the other
> hand, at this rate, how are we to
> know that they will advance even
> further in another 50 yrs. and everything
> that is now considered an improvement
> proves to be false.
>
> In psychiatry, the safest thing seems to
> be treating symptoms. There is really
> very little science involved, only symptoms
> correlated with observations of brain
> activities - and even there that changes
> according to different vogues - the latest
> one now being MRI tests.
>
> Squiggles
--------------------------------------------All drugs, psychotropic or not, treat symptoms. The only drug that "cures" anything is an antibiotic.
The understanding of how the brain functions couldn't be more accurately examined than the MRI and other similar modern scans of the brain. There's been more information gathered from these technologies in the last decade than perhaps from the beginnings of psychiatry.
Who would describe gaining that type of information as anything other than a positive stepping stone in turning psychiatry into something other than a punching bag as it is treated by some?
The present commercially driven fad is treating anxiety disorders with something other than bzds (with bzd @ rates of 75 - 85% effectiveness), such as ssri's (disputibly less than 50% effective) and neuroleptics (with side effects as serious as irreversable TD) or anticonvulsants....all of which are usually augmented with bzd therapy in the end anyway if the patient wants complete relief from their symptoms.
poster:alan
thread:116248
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020821/msgs/118105.html