Book reviews

DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-0447.2009.01478.x

Medical illness and schizophrenia By Jonathan M. Meyer,Henry A. Nasrallah. American Psychiatric Publishing, Arling-ton, VA, 2009 471 pp., April 22, Paperback $57. ISBN

9781585623464

It is well-known that individuals with schizophrenia, onaverage, face more medical problems and die at a youngerage compared to the population as a whole. Recent assess-ments have indicated a gap in life expectance of 22.5 years. Thecauses include substandard medical care, unhealthy life style,poor compliance with medical follow-up and therapeuticrecommendations, and side effects of psychotropic drugs.Medical Illness and Schizophrenia seeks to educate profession-als on the health burdens faced by schizophrenic individualsand the evidence-based interventions that have been shown tohelp and it complements nicely the recommendations made inOctober 2006 in the United States in the Thirteenth TechnicalReport of the National Association of State Mental HealthProgram Directors.This newly updated second edition is organized into three

sections. The first, �Public Health Issues for SchizophreniaPatients�, offers background on medical disparities faced bypeople with schizophrenia. The next section, �MetabolicDisease, Heart Disease, and Related Conditions�, focusesspecifically on metabolic and cardiovascular side effects ofantipsychotic medications, as well as tobacco use. The lastsection, �Special Topics and Populations�, includes chapters onsubpopulations in need of special attention such as breastfeed-ing and pregnant women, individuals with HIV and HepatitisC, and the elderly. Each chapter ends with a bullet pointsummary of key clinical points.Notable improvements from the first edition include thor-

oughly updated references (as recent as 2008), as well as newchapters on treatments for weight gain, sexual dysfunction, andmedical issues of children and adolescents with psychoticdisorders. This unique textbook should serve as an excellentguide for clinicians and all those interested in the medical careof people with schizophrenia.

Reed Cromwell Flaschen, Peter ManuAlbert Einstein College of Medicine

Bronx, NY

The Zucker Hillside Hospital

Glen Oaks, NY, USA

E-mail: pmanu@lij.edu

DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-0447.2009.01452.x

Shock therapy: a history of electroconvulsive treatment in mentalillness By Edward Shorter and David Healy. Published byRutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ, and London,

2007 382 pp., Hardback, $29.95. ISBN 978-0-8135-4169-3

For those who have worked with and seen electroconvulsivetherapy cure otherwise treatment refractory or acutely severelyill psychiatric patients, the prejudice and stigma surroundingthis treatment seems ignorant and benighted. The best we canhope for when we socialize with non-peers is statements such as�well, it used to be abused – but today it is only used when

absolutely necessary�. However, has it been abused or overused– especially compared with other effective treatments – such asantidepressant drugs or penicillin? The treatment has cognitiveside effects. How salient are they and how have they beendiscussed over the years? If nobody knows exactly how ECTworks on psychiatric illness how was it invented in the firstplace? Edward Shorter and David Healy gives here athoroughly investigated historical account of its history.The approach is critical but definitely not hostile. Thebook takes us through the early years in the 1930s fromManfred Sakels� insulin coma therapy over Ladislaus Medun-as� metrazol-induced seizure therapy to Ugo Cerlettis andLucio Binis� electrically induced seizure therapy. Then followsan account of the rapid globalization of the treatmentfollowed by a chapter on the relationship between psychoanal-ysis and ECT entitled �The couch or the treatment table?�Under the headings �ECT does not create zombies� and �They�regoing to fry your brains�, two chapters are devoted to adescription of how the cognitive side effects were discussed andunderstood since the 1960s. The decline in use due to emergingpsychopharmacological possibilities is then described. Appro-priately, in the next chapter the impact of anti-psychiatry isdiscussed together with �the effects of politics, law and changesin medical culture on ECT�. The reader is then relieved by adescription of the emerging revival of ECT in the 1990s. Thebook ends with a critical account of the contemporary attemptsto find other means of brain stimulation with efficiency as ECT.The book is an elegant narrative and is highly entertaining. It isa must for anyone interested in ECT or the history ofpsychiatry and can be recommended to anyone interested inpsychiatry.

Martin Balslev JørgensenPsykiatrisk Center, Rigshospitalet, Blegdamsvej 9, 2100

Copenhagen, Denmark

E-mail: martinbj@rh.regionh.dk

DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-0447.2009.01508.x

A clinician�s guide to statistics and epidemiology in mentalhealth: measuring truth and uncertainty By Nassir S. Ghaemi.Published by Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2009

151 pp., Paperback, £27.99 (US$50.00). ISBN 9780521709583

Statistics is widely feared among clinicians because of theconception that statistics is both difficult and abstract. Thisbook aims at settling the account by showing the reader thateven a clinician can understand the statistical methods used inepidemiology.It is an introduction to the statistical concepts which are

central to understanding and conducting epidemiologicalresearch. However, it does not seek to equip the reader withthe necessary tools to perform statistical analysis, but insteadto give the reader a guide to understanding and interpreting themost commonly encountered statistics.The book is divided into six sections of which the first

three concern basic concepts such as bias, regression andhypothesis-testing while the last three sections are focused ondifferent problems in statistics such as establishing causality,

Acta Psychiatr Scand 2010: 121: 158–159All rights reserved

� 2010 John Wiley & Sons A/S

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