Medical and political developments in Germany and UK

The Federal Association of People with Experience in Psychiatry (BPE) has issued an open letter to German health and interior ministers, warning against a political shift toward security-focused psychiatric laws. The BPE argues that recent legislative efforts to tighten regulations on the placement and treatment of individuals with psychiatric diagnoses are driven by security concerns following violent incidents involving diagnosed individuals. The association contends that people with psychiatric diagnoses are not more prone to violence than the general population and that such measures, including expanded data sharing with police and the creation of registers, fail to address the root causes while potentially compromising patient rights.

In the United Kingdom, the Association of British Neurologists (ABN) and the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych) have released clinical guidelines for the use of blood-based biomarker tests to detect Alzheimer’s disease. The guidelines, published in Practical Neurology, include 22 recommendations to structure the use of these tests, specifically identifying plasma-p-tau217 as the preferred method. The experts emphasize that these tests must be part of a comprehensive specialist evaluation for patients with measurable cognitive issues and should not be used for uncritical screening of asymptomatic individuals or those with only subjective cognitive complaints.