Benzodiazepines (BZDs) are essential drugs used in the treatment of different health problems: Peru’s National Drug Petitionary lists five of them allowed for oral or parenteral administration. At the beginning in the 1960s, BZDs were widely and unrestrictedly prescribed; the subsequent development of tolerance and withdrawal phenomena, triggered by their prolonged use, led to drastic prescription restrictions,  sometimes below the real clinical needs. Although BZDs are included in the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) group IV of controlled substances, it is accepted that, in general, they are not primary drugs of abuse, and the development of addictive phenomena only occurs in the presence of comorbidity with other drug addictions. It is necessary to distinguish between the "inappropriate use" or "misuse" of the BZDs and those cases that meet criteria of full dependence. The...

There is an erroneous perception that Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) should be used as a last resource of psychiatric management and only in chronic and refractory cases. This, among other causes, has led to an unfortunate decrement in its use during recent times both in our country and in other places. However, acute psychoses with catatoniform or motility symptoms have high favorable response rates, up to 100%, and ECT should, therefore, be a first line treatment resource for these disorders in order to prevent or avoid the occurrence of catatonia´s ominous consequences. The case of a patient with diagnosis of acute polymorphic psychotic disorder without symptoms of schizophrenia (F23.0, ICD-10) is presented. The patient achieved a complete remission of his catatonic and psychotic symptoms with a single session of ECT – an infrequent event by itself-. On this basis, e review of per...

Objetivo: Describir las características clínico-epidemiológicas de gangrena de Fournier en el Hospital Regional Honorio Delgado Espinoza desde Enero 2005 a Diciembre 2015. Métodos: Se realizó un estudio de tipo observacional, retrospectivo y transversal revisándose 15 casos de gangrena de Fournier del Hospital Regional Honorio Delgado Espinoza correspondientes al período Enero 2005-Diciembre 2015 y determinándose sus características clínico-epidemiológicas. Resultados: De los 15 casos revisados, el 73.3% correspondió al sexo masculino, la edad promedio fue de 56.1 años y el rango de edad más afectado fue el de 70 años. El factor predisponente más frecuente fue la diabetes mellitus con 26.7%. La patología perianal la causa desencadenante más frecuente con un 66.7%. El tiempo de enfermedad promedio fue de 2.8 días. Dolor, eritema, edema y taquicardia estuvieron presen...

Autoscopic phenomena include autoscopic hallucination, heautoscopy, and out-of-body experiences. Although their study had been neglected due to their apparent rarity, today they constitute a fruitful source for the study of the neurobiological bases of self and ego sense of consciousness. Its etiology, secondary to organicity, consumption of psychoactive substances and primary psychiatric conditions, also allows us to peer into the eventual connections between classical psychopathology and recent findings of the most sophisticated neurobiology. We present the report of two cases of psychogenic etiology, and postulate the heuristic possibility that, on the basis of the increasing frequency of selfies and related concepts in current human life, autoscopic phenomena may also be augmenting.

Autoscopic phenomena include autoscopic hallucination, heautoscopy, and out-of-body experiences. Although their study had been neglected due to their apparent rarity, today they constitute a fruitful source for the study of the neurobiological bases of self and ego sense of consciousness. Its etiology, secondary to organicity, consumption of psychoactive substances and primary psychiatric conditions, also allows us to peer into the eventual connections between classical psychopathology and recent findings of the most sophisticated neurobiology. We present the report of two cases of psychogenic etiology, and postulate the heuristic possibility that, on the basis of the increasing frequency of selfies and related concepts in current human life, autoscopic phenomena may also be augmenting.

Curso de especialidad de la carrera de medicina, de carácter teórico práctico del ciclo 12, en el que los estudiantes con un previo conocimiento de la entrevista en salud mental y las características psicopatológicas de los trastornos mentales, estabecen un adecuado diagnóstico de salud mental y definen la conducta medica apropiada a seguir según el nivel de atención que corresponda. El curso de Externado de Psiquiatría busca desarrollar la competencia específicas de la carrera de Práctica Clínica (nivel 3) y Profesionalismo (nivel 3)