Posted by Larry Hoover on September 1, 2003, at 14:41:40
In reply to Re: A poll for everyone... out of curiosity. » Larry Hoover, posted by DSCH on August 30, 2003, at 9:52:27
> At this point, my intellectual vanity ;-) would like to offer up an earlier post of mine for comments.
Why does your inquiry invoke vanity? <Spock eyebrow>
> http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030812/msgs/251620.html
OK, from that post:
You said:
"The real answer is that we need greater discrimination in identifing the real problem(s) and then the ability to scientifically rather than "artistically" tailor treatment for that individual."That seems to be a description of the ideal towards which we are striving.....
" 'Ask not what disease the person has, rather ask what *person* the disease has.' "
Nice aphorism.
However, reality seems to be more aptly described in this quotation:
"B) Syndromes overlap. One could concievably have, for example, mild OCD along with ADD without hyperactivity and yet get lumped in with everyone under the umbrella of "ADHD"."
The intellectual "pinch point" between the two is, obviously, obtaining the correct diagnosis. However, few disease states are so well-defined that we can unequivocally identify them. Arthritis is a symptom of over 100 diseases. Not all diseases that can cause arthritis do present with arthritis. When you get into mental illness, I would argue that the diagnostic categories themselves are flawed. If we can't even define the illnesses concisely in words, we certainly cannot diagnose them with 100% accuracy.
That is my opinion. I now offer my own words up for comment.
> Does anyone have data on what percentage of patients see substantial improvement in the double blind trials relative to placebo for some of the standard bearer medications for depression and ADD?
Well, I know of a few meta-analyses. Here's one:
http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/p000429.htmlLar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:254283
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030828/msgs/256144.html