Pharmacotherapy in Special Situations: Introduction | Pregnancy
| Pediatric Psychopharmacology | Geriatric Psychopharmacology |
Mental Retardation (Intellectual Disability) | Medical
Conditions | Conclusion | Bibliography One of the difficulties
that clinicians face is that a typical clinic patient often does
not resemble the sanitized patients selected for in research
studies. Most published reports evaluating the efficacy of
psychoactive drugs in psychiatric patients carefully select
physically healthy adult, but not geriatric, pediatric, or
pregnant, patients. Unfortunately, in clinical practice,
physicians frequently encounter patients with psychiatric
disorders who are also pregnant, juvenile, elderly, brain
damaged, or medically ill but who are otherwise appropriate
candidates for conventional pharmacotherapy. Since the last
edition of this book, much has been learned about treating
special populations with psychotropic agents. In this chapter,
we address some of these special situations.