General Psychiatrist

Psychiatry is the branch of medicine focused on the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mental, emotional and behavioral disorders.

A psychiatrist is a medical doctor (an M.D. or D.O.) who specializes in mental health, including substance use disorders. Psychiatrists are qualified to assess both the mental and physical aspects of psychological problems.

People seek psychiatric help for many reasons. The problems can be sudden, such as a panic attack, frightening hallucinations, thoughts of suicide, or hearing “voices.” Or they may be more long-term, such as feelings of sadness, hopelessness, or anxiousness that never seem to lift or problems functioning, causing everyday life to feel distorted or out of control.

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common psychiatry mental disorders affecting children. ADHD also affects many adults. Symptoms of ADHD include inattention (not being able to keep focus), hyperactivity (excess movement that is not fitting to the setting) and impulsivity (hasty acts that occur in the moment without thought).  

Depression, fear, and anxiety are some of the most common and uncomfortable emotions we can experience at some point in our lives. Through counseling and treatment, we are able to help you recover motivation, perspective, and joy that you once had in your life. Psychiatry has many tools to strengthen your mental health.

Adult mental health problems range from sudden spurts of uncontrollable anger and debilitating anxiety to the challenges of depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. The team at Pacific Neuropsychiatric Specialists has extensive experience in adult psychiatry, offering comprehensive medical and therapeutic care for the full scope of mental health disorders. 

The goal of medication management is to positively impact the health outcomes of the patient. Medication Management is making sure you get the right medication and the right dosage – testing is specific to medications in psychiatry and mental health. To do this we ask for a DNA sample to be tested for drug efficacy. The assessment includes the patient’s medication history.  

Many patients decide to participate in psychotherapy or counseling when they need help with depression, anxiety, and anger. But those three problems barely start the long list of mental health challenges you can overcome with therapy. 

Millions of Americans are affected by bipolar disorder.  As Psychiatrists, we know managing these symptoms without the proper help can be overwhelming, but we are here to help.  We may prescribe medication and treatments for both the manic and depressive episodes associated with bipolar disorder. 

Schizoaffective disorder is a mental health disorder that is marked by a combination of schizophrenia symptoms, such as hallucinations or delusions, and mood disorder symptoms, such as depression or mania.

The two types of schizoaffective disorder — both of which include some symptoms of schizophrenia — are:

• Bipolar type, which includes episodes of mania and sometimes major depression
• Depressive type, which includes only major depressive episodes

Schizophrenia is a serious mental disorder in which people interpret reality abnormally. Schizophrenia may result in some combination of hallucinations, delusions, and extremely disordered thinking and behavior that impairs daily functioning, and can be disabling.

People with schizophrenia require lifelong treatment. Early treatment may help get symptoms under control before serious complications develop and may help improve the long-term outlook.

Psychiatric evaluation – Diagnosing dementia and its type can be challenging. People have dementia when they have cognitive impairment and lose their ability to perform daily functions, such as taking their medication, paying bills and driving safely.

To diagnose the cause of the dementia, the doctor must recognize the pattern of the loss of skills and function and determine what a person is still able to do. More recently, biomarkers have become available to make a more accurate diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.

Your doctor will review your medical history and symptoms and conduct a physical examination. He or she will likely ask someone close to you about your symptoms as well.

No single test can diagnose dementia, so doctors are likely to run a number of tests that can help pinpoint the problem.

Doctors will evaluate your thinking (cognitive) function. A number of tests measure thinking skills, such as memory, orientation, reasoning and judgment, language skills, and attention.

Neurological evaluation

Doctors evaluate your memory, language, visual perception, attention, problem-solving, movement, senses, balance, reflexes and other areas.

• CT or MRI. These scans can check for evidence of stroke or bleeding or tumor or hydrocephalus.
• PET scans. These can show patterns of brain activity and whether the amyloid protein, a hallmark of alzheimer’s disease, has been deposited in the brain.

Laboratory tests

Simple blood tests can detect physical problems that can affect brain function, such as vitamin B-12 deficiency or an underactive thyroid gland. Sometimes the spinal fluid is examined for infection, inflammation or markers of some degenerative diseases.