BOOK REVIEW

A Psychiatric Vade-Mecum. Edited by BASANT K. PURI

AND HEATHER MCKEE. Arnold Press, 1998. No. ofpages: 342. Price: £14.99.

This book, I am reliably informed by the blurb on theback cover, is in the mould of the publishers longestablished Vade-Mecum titles, which literally means`take with me'. It purports to o�er ``sound practicalguidance on all aspects of clinical and administrativepsychiatric practice'', which is quite a bold statementconsidering that this book is just over 300 pages long andis roughly the size of an electronic calculator. This is, ofcourse, one of the book's advantages, as carrying aroundThe Oxford Textbook when starting your ®rst SHO job inpsychiatry is impractical, and also advertises to all andsundry that you probably don't know what you aredoing.

As an introduction to being a junior doctor in psychi-atry, and as an aide memoire, this book is in fact quiteuseful; it would certainly go some way to helping a newrecruit feel less anxious about performing on-call andward duties. The contents of this book are wide ranging

and aim to provide a general overview of psychiatricpractice rather than being a `lecture notes' type bookwhich people use for exam revision. The information isclinically relevant and concise, although the inclusion ofa step by step pictorial guide to breast examination is alittle bizarre!I should think that this book ceases to be of as much

value to trainees who have worked in psychiatry for ayear or so, as its contents should by then be secondnature.All in all I felt that this book was easy to use as an

introductory reference book, as it had clear headingsand well set out information. However, I could not helpthinking that it lacked a degree of warmth and humourand had a rather impersonal feel to it; although I guessthat, when you are in casualty at 3 am and you just wantto check that you have asked all the relevant questionsneeded to adequately asses homicide risk, the authors'literary style matters very little.

JONATHAN MARKS

Manchester Royal In®rmary

CCC 0885±6230/2000/010090±01$17.50Copyright # 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF GERIATRIC PSYCHIATRY

Int. J. Geriat. Psychiatry 15, 90 (2000)

Alzheimer's Disease and Related DisordersÐEtiologyPathogenesis and Therapeutics. Edited by KHALID

IQBAL, DICK F. SWAAB, BENGT WINBLAD and HENRY M.WISNIEWSKI. Wiley, Chichester, 1999. Price: £175.00.No. of pages: 845.

This book is not an old age psychiatry text book. It is acompilation of 95 papers chosen from the 1300 presentedat the 6th International Conference on Alzheimer'sDisease and Related Disorders, held in Amsterdam,The Netherlands. Consequently, it is of more interest toresearchers than clinicians wishing to gain an under-standing for the clinical application of recent ®ndings.Some of the papers have clinical applications. In part-icular there are good papers on neuropsychologicalscreening in early dementia and e�ective counselling

strategies that can be used to diminish su�ering in carersof patients with Alzheimer's disease. However, themajority of the papers are concerned with neuropatho-logical processes. The most likely interested reader of thisbook is likely to be either a research neuropathologist orsomeone with fond memories and withdrawal symptomsfrom the 6th International Conference on Alzheimer'sDisease and Related Disorders. The pitch of the pricewill probably not make it top priority for spending fromthe annual psychiatric library budget.

STEVE SIMPSON

Forston Clinic,Dorchester, UK