PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — When obsessive-compulsive disorder is of crippling severity and drugs and behavior therapy can’t help, there has been for just over a year a thread — or rather a wire — of hope. By inserting a thin elec…
People with obsessions and compulsions experience considerable benefit from a combined treatment of drugs and behavioural therapy. Treatment with drugs alone is less effective. This is revealed in doctoral research by psychologist Nienke Tenney from Utrecht University. About half of the patients with an obsessive-compulsive disorder do not benefit from treatment. Some refuse treatment or stop the treatment before it has been completed. Moreover, many patients who do respond to treatment continue to experience a considerable number of residual symptoms.
A new study aims to determine once and for all whether a link exists between obsessive-compulsive behavior and strep infections in children. The research, to be conducted by the University of Florida and the National Institutes of Mental Health, is prompted by anecdotal reports from parents with OCD kids that their children’s behavior, such as compulsive hand washing, worsens when the child is ill with strep.