Aim: Conduct a systematic review of studies that assess peripheral RNFL thickness in AD and MCI.

Methods: Based on pre-defined criteria, studies in English or Chinese were identified from PubMed, Embase, ISI web of knowledge, Ovid/Medline, Science Direct, Cochrane Library, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Chongqing VIP database, WANFANG DATA, and the China BioMedical Literature Service System (SinoMed). Review Manager 5.3 was used for analysis.

Results: The 19 cross-sectional studies identified had a pooled sample of 1455 individuals. There was substantial heterogeneity between studies that compared RNFL in AD or MCI to normal controls, but this heterogeneity was primarily restricted to low-quality studies. Combining 6 high-quality studies (n=578) indicated that total RNFL thickness and the thickness of superior and inferior RNFL quadrants in AD were significantly thinner than in normal controls. Similarly, combining 5 high-quality studies (n=541) indicated significantly thinner total RNFL thickness in MCI than in controls. Six studies (n=589) found thinner RNFL in the superior and inferior quadrants in MCI than in controls; and 6 studies (n=487) found thinner RNFL in the temporal quadrant in MCI than in controls. Finally, 7 studies (n=432) indicated that total RNFL was thinner in AD than in MCI, and 6 studies (n=364) indicated thinner RNFL in the superior and inferior quadrants in AD than in MCI.

Conclusions: Much of the heterogeneity in results from previous studies may be due to poor methodology. Peripheral RNFL thicknesses, particularly in the superior and inferior quadrants, becomes progressively thinner as cognitive function declines, so this could be a candidate biomarker for early identification of AD. Methodologically rigorous studies in large population-based cohort studies that follow elderly individuals over time and that simultaneously collect information on potential mediating factors (such as blood pressure, blood glucose, and lipid levels) are needed to confirm or disprove the potential predictive value of RNFL.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; mild cognitive impairment; retinal nerve fiber layer; meta-analysis [Shanghai Arch Psychiatry. 2015, 27(5): 263-279. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.11919/j.issn.1002-0829.215100]

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Original research article

Background: Programs to remediate cognitive deficits have shown promising results in schizophrenia, but remediation of social cognition deficits is less well understood. Social cognitive deficits may cause more disability than the widely recognized neurocognitive deficits, suggesting that this is an area worthy of further investigation. 

Background: Behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) occur in 70-90% of patients at different stages of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), but the available methods for managing these problems are of limited effectiveness. 

Effectiveness of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) treatments on the cognitive functioning of elderly persons with mild cognitive impairment associated with white matter lesions

Background: Cerebral white matter lesion (WML) is a pathological change of the white matter which is considered an early sign of brain impairment in elderly individuals, so it is reasonable to administer early dementia prevention programs to individuals with WML. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has developed several approaches to prevent or delay the onset of dementia that have, as yet, not been formally tested. 

Summary: Excessive polypharmacy is a common problem around the world, particularly in the treatment of psychiatric disorders. In mainland China use of out-of-date treatment strategies by psychiatric professionals is one of the reasons; others include unrealistically high expectations about the effectiveness of medications, the dominant role of the doctor in doctor-patient negotiations about treatment, the practice of polypharmacy in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), the profit-driven nature of medical institutions and individuals, the infiltration of pharmaceutical marketing, and a critical lack of relevant research. This commentary considers the cultural factors that need to be addressed when trying to reduce polypharmacy in psychiatry in China. 

Summary: This case report describes a 30-year-old mother of four with a 6-year history of obvious paranoia and psychosis from a poor rural farming community in India. Her symptoms and social functioning deteriorated over time, but the family did not seek medical care until she killed her 3-month-old daughter while under the influence of command hallucinations. Subsequent treatment with antipsychotic medication resulted in control of her psychotic symptoms and greatly improved psychosocial functioning. This case is an example of one of the many negative consequences of a community’s failure to recognize and treat mental illnesses. The patient had severe symptoms that were obvious to all for 6 years prior to the infanticide, but the family’s lack of basic knowledge about mental illness, the lack of locally available mental health care, and the relatively high cost of care prevented family members from obtaining the treatment that almost certainly would have prevented the tragic death of her infant. Changing these three factors in poor rural communities of low- and middle-income countries is the challenge we must work together to address. Infanticide secondary to untreated mental illness is a glaring reminder of how urgent this task is. 

Summary: Sudden deaths associated with the use of electroconvulsive therapy are rare. In this case report a 58-year-old male with a 20-year history of bipolar disorder and no history or signs of cardiac illness died from cardiac arrest within one hour of receiving an initial session of modified electroconvulsive therapy (MECT) to treat a recurrent episode of non-psychotic mania. The patient regained consciousness and was medically stable immediately after the MECT session (which did not produce a convulsion) but deteriorated rapidly after transfer to the recovery room. It was not possible to conduct an autopsy, but the authors surmise that the most probable cause was that the use of haloperidol 17 hours prior to MECT exacerbated the cardiac effects of nonconvulsive MECT. The case highlights the need for a thorough cardiac work-up on patients being considered for MECT (possibly including assessment of cardiac enzymes in older individuals) and careful consideration of the concurrent use of antipsychotic medications and MECT. 

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Summary: The sample geometric mean has been widely used in biomedical and psychosocial research to estimate and compare population geometric means. However, due to the detection limit of measurement instruments, the actual value of the measurement is not always observable. A common practice to deal with this problem is to replace missing values by small positive constants and make inferences based on the imputed data. However, no work has been carried out to study the effect of this naïve imputation method on inference. In this report, we show that this simple imputation method may dramatically change the reported outcomes of a study and, thus, make the results uninterpretable, even if the detection limit is very small.