Psychiatry Congress highlights

Wednesday 1 June 2011

The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists’ Congress runs until 2 June 2011 at the Darwin Convention Centre. The Congress brings together mental health experts in a diverse range of areas across cultures and age groups. Here are some highlights from today’s program; the full program is available at http://www.ranzcp2011.com/congress-program/.

Social media – pitfalls and promise for doctors
“Social media offers enormous potential benefits to medical practitioners and to patients, but they also pose real dangers. These are substantial, often poorly understood and include risks to privacy, confidentiality and professionalism for medical practitioners. It may also blur the boundaries of the relationship between psychiatrists and patients. At present many clinicians are unsure how to navigate the new terrain of social media and avoid using what is potentially a highly useful tool or dip into the use of the new media exposing themselves to considerable professional risk,” said symposium chair A/Prof Anthony Harris. The symposium will highlight the risk and possibilities of social media in difficult and novel professional and ethical situations. (9am)

Alcohol-related dementia
Patients with alcohol-related dementia are frequently diagnosed in hospital rather than in dementia clinics. A recent study identified alcohol-related dementia patients over 50 years of age from the NSW Admitted Patient Care Database for a 12 month period. There were over 1100 admissions for 300 patients diagnosed with alcohol-related dementia, 82% of which were men. Alcohol-related mental disorder was recorded in 62.5% of alcohol-related dementia admissions. “Principal reasons for admission included alcohol-related mental disorder, alcoholic liver disease and injuries/poisonings. Additional illnesses were common and like other dementia patients, alcohol-related dementia patients had longer length of stays than non dementia patients and more transfers to residential care. Extrapolation of these findings to the rest of the country would suggest that there is considerable morbidity due to alcohol-related dementia in Australia” said study author Prof Brian Draper. (11am)

Cognitive remediation therapy for severe mental illness
Cognitive difficulties are now known to be a hallmark of severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and autism. These problems are present early in the developmental course of the disorders, probably worsen at the time of their presentation, are prominent causes of dysfunction and correlate strongly with overall patient outcomes, yet they are rarely targeted for treatment. “Current mainstream approaches to treatment using second generation antipsychotic medication make little impact upon neurocognitive and social cognitive deficits. A number of remediation or training approaches to these problems are significantly more successful,” said study author A/Prof Anthony Harris. (11am)

Today’s keynote speakers:
Professor Ma Hong, Director of the Department of Public Mental Health, Institute of Mental Health, Peking University and Executive Director of National Center for Mental Health, and specialist in crisis intervention and public mental health in China.
Meeting the needs: Disaster victims and rescuers in China (1.30pm)

Dr Annemaree Bickerton, child and adolescent psychiatrist at St George Hospital, Sydney and expert in working with families and carers of consumers with mental health issues.
Is eye contact asking too much?: Connecting with carers core business in adult mental health services (2.15pm)

About The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists
The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists is the principal organisation representing the medical specialty of psychiatry in Australia and New Zealand and has responsibility for training, examining and awarding the qualification of Fellowship of the College to medical practitioners. www.ranzcp.org.

ENDS

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