Functional symptoms (MUS)

Question 1

What is MUS?

Answer 1

Persistent bodily complaints for which adequate exam does not reveal explanatory pathology

Question 2

What is illness anxiety disorder?

Answer 2

patients have anxious belief that they have some scary illness (HIV, cancer, brain tumour) and repeatedly present with that fear and non-specific symptoms but they don’t get re-assured even with negative exams

Question 3

What is conversion disorder?

Answer 3

neurological symptoms without neurological lesions - functional tremor, functional loss of sensation

Question 4

What is factitious disorder?

Answer 4

Rare but difficult to treat and manage, someone deceives others by appearing sick, by purposely getting sick or by self-injury

Question 5

What is somatisation?

Answer 5

emotional response is converted into bodily symptoms

Question 6

Risk factors for somatisation disorders?

Answer 6

• History of sexual or physical abuse
• History of unstable childhood
• History of trauma-related disorders
• Female sex
• Alexithymia
• Neuroticism

Question 7

How can we re-assure patients with somatisation disorders?

Answer 7

• validate their symptoms
• explain the commonness
• explain the non-dangerousness
• explain reversibility of condition
• explain the positive prognosis
• medical vigilance (if anything changes, we’ll look again)