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The tetracyclic antibiotic minocycline appears to have positive results when added to the the treatment prescribed for persistent symptoms of schizophrenia.To provide an overview of the literature on minocycline and schizophrenia.PubMed, up to September 2013, was scanned for articles relating to minocycline and schizophrenia.We found seven case reports with regard to the use of minocycline as an additive in the treatment of persistent schizophrenia. Furthermore, an open-label study and two randomised placebo-controlled studies regarding this addition were published. Using minocycline may add to the improvement of negative symptoms and cognition in patients with schizophrenia.It is concluded, albeit somewhat cautiously, that minocycline may be helpful in treating negative and cognitive symptoms in schizophrenia.

The fact that more and more interviews are being conducted on the phone suggests that phone interviews are just as valid as face-to-face interviews.To discuss the literature on the assessment of psychiatric patients with depressive disorder when there is no personal contact between psychiatrists and patient.We searched the literature using PubMed and the snowball method so that we could make comparisons between face-to-face interviews and phone interviews. We only consulted the literature that dealt with the diagnosis of depressive symptoms.Some advantages are to be gained from diagnosis by telephone, but in the case of psychiatric diagnoses there are considerable disadvantages. The absence of visual cues is a major impediment to accurate diagnosis.Psychiatrists need to come face-to-face with their patients. The face-to-face interview is still ‘the gold standard' for making diagnoses in psychiatry.

Measuring (extrapyramidal) psychotic disorders often is a highly relevant part of clinical research into the course and treatment of movement disorders. Traditionally these disorders have always been assessed on the basis of a well-known set of rating scales. The limitations and shortcomings of these scales are discussed in the article. It is argued that a new standard instrument needs to be developed for the measurement of movement disorders. The SADIMOD can be regarded as a good starting point for the development of such an instrument.

Posttraumatic stress disorder was diagnosed in two patients, men aged 26 and 29, an asylum seeker from the Middle East and a refugee from former Yugoslavia respectively. They had experienced severe psychotraumatic events. They were referred to a clinic for traumatised refugees and asylum seekers. Their psychiatric disturbances did not fit posttraumatic stress disorder, however. The former suffered from a schizophrenic disorder, the latter from psychosis and depression based on alcohol dependence. Growing awareness of the high prevalence of traumatic experiences in the population leads to a contextual shift in therapists regarding their understanding of the short and long term effects of traumatization in their patients. Exclusive focus on the traumatic history, however, biases the diagnostic process and could lead to wrong conclusions about a causal relationship between traumatic experiences and the psychopathology observed in the patient. When treating asylum seekers or refugees the risk of jumping to this false conclusion is even higher, partially due to cultural and language barriers.

A 38-year-old woman was treated for mutism with clozapine. After a week liver function disturbances developed, which disappeared when the treatment was discontinued. Histopathological investigation of a liver biopsy specimen revealed extensive liver cell necrosis. So far two patients have been described with cholestatic jaundice induced by clozapine, and one patient with toxic hepatitis due to clozapine.