What You Need to Know about Psychiatric Drugs: What You Need to Know about

Each year, as the coauthors point out, close to 200 million prescriptions for psychiatric drugs are filled in the U.S. Yet many people who require them are ill-equipped or unable to ask questions about the drugs or about appropriate alternatives. Yudofsky, Hales and Ferguson here explain the types of psychiatric drugs and the conditions they assuage, while encouraging patients and their families to ask more questions. Described in detail are what the drugs do : tranquilizers, antidepressants, anti-addictives, anti-aggressives, sedatives; and pharmaceutical treatments for mania, phobias, panic disorders and Alzheimer's disease. Parents of young children may find the chapter on drugs for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorders (frequently found in children) particularly helpful; just as beneficial is a chapter on the uses of sleeping pills for insomnia and other sleep-related problems. Also discussed are non-drug treatment options for several conditions. But unfortunately, the writing is stiff, as is nowhere more apparent than in the contrived, uninspiring case histories. Yudofsky is chairman of the department of psychiatry at the University of Chicago; Hales is chairman of the department of psychiatry at the Pacific Presbyterian Medical Center in San Francisco; Ferguson is president of the Center for Self-Care Studies in Austin, Tex. (Mar.)