L9 - Functional Disorders Flashcards
1. Recognise the frequency of functional neurological disorders, and medical unexplained syndromes, and the range of severity. 2. Define somatisation, somatoform disorder, conversion disorder, dissociation, malingering and factitious disorder. 3. Understand that abnormal health beliefs may occur in depression and schizophrenia, but that these syndromes differ from the functional disorders. 4. Learn about common functional neurological presentations including non-epileptic attack disorder, functi
Define Somatization
Manifestation of psychological distress by presentation of physical symptoms.
What is a somatoform disorder?
Group of psychological disorders in which a patient experiences physical symptoms that are inconsistent with or cannot be fully explained by any underlying general medical or neurologic condition.
Conversion disorder
Mental condition where person has blindness, paralysis or other neurologic symptoms that cannot be explained by medical evaluation.
What is dissociation?
Disconnection from yourself or world.
A way mind copes with too much stress e.g. traumatic event
Malingering
Pretending to be ill, exaggerated symptoms with goal of receiving award. e.g. compensation, escape from work.
Similar but different to factitious disorder.
Factitious disorder
Condition in which an individual deceives others by appearing ill, impaired, self-injury or purposely getting sick.
Recurrent episodes of deceptive behaviour.
Depression
Low mood which lasts for a long time.
Schizophrenia
Type of psychosis.
Person may not be able to distinguish their own thoughts and ideas from reality.
Symptoms: hallucinations, delusions, changes in behaviour.
Functional neurological disorders
Name given for symptoms in body which appear to be caused by problems in the nervous system but which are not a physical neurological disease.
What is a non-epileptic attack disorder?
Resemble epileptic seizures BUT are not caused by epileptic activity in the brain
- thought to have a psychological basis.
What is a functional movement disorder?
When you experience unusual, involuntary movements.
Caused by problems with the way signals are sent throughout the brain.
Symptoms of a functional movement disorder?
Tremor
Jerks/ Twitches
Spasm/ contractures
Gait (walking) problems
Functional cognitive disorders
Patients who present with memory complaints, however have no underlying cognitive disorder.
Functional Paralysis
Limb paralysis in the absence of neurologic disease.
Panic attacks
Feeling of sudden and intense anxiety.
Symptoms: shaking, feeling disorientated, nausea, rapid, irregular heartbeats, dry mouth, breathlessness, sweating and dizziness.
