Mental health

Question 1

What are the major type of mental illness?

Answer 1

Mood disorders
Psychotic disorders
Personality disorders
Cognitive disorders
Somatoform disorders

Question 2

What is a mood disorder?

Answer 2

When your mood interferes with your everyday life.

Question 3

What is mood?

Answer 3

Your inward feelings.

Question 4

What is affect?

Answer 4

The outward presentation of your current mood.

Question 5

What are the common mood disorders?

Answer 5

Depression
Anxiety disorder
Bipolar disorder

Question 6

What are the physical effects of depression?

Answer 6

loss of appetite leading to weightloss
Insomnia
Withdrawal
Lack of Energy 
Poor concentration
Sad appearance
Crying spells

Question 7

What are the psychological effects of depression?

Answer 7

Low mood
Loss of interest 
Sense of guilt
Suicidal thoughts
Listless, apathetic behaviour

Question 8

What are the most common characteristics of anxiety?

Answer 8

Agitation and restlessness
Intense fear
Tension
Sense of being overwhelmed
Lack of concentration
Sense of anxiety and agitation among family and bystanders as well

Question 9

What is generalised anxiety disorder?

Answer 9

Pervasive fear from the belief that events in everyday world are overwhelming. People with GAD often worry about news and other peoples lives.

Question 10

What is agoraophobia?

Answer 10

The fear of wide open or busy places.

Question 11

What is bipolar disorder?

Answer 11

When patients alternate between the pathologically elevated mood or mania and pathologically low mood or depression. They suffer from manic depression.

Question 12

What are the phases of mania?

Answer 12

Often loud and rapid speech
Many ideas going in and out of the patients head
Entertaining and fun to be around

Question 13

What are psychotic disorders?

Answer 13

Separation from reality. Hallucinations and delusions are the typical characteristics.

Question 14

What is schizophrenia?

Answer 14

Delusions and or hallucinations
Disinterest in social interaction
Withdrawal from company
Difficultly in integrating into society

Question 15

What are the different types of hallucinations?

Answer 15

Auditory - hearing voices
Visual
Tactile - feeling things crawling on you etc
Olfactory - smell (usually sign of a tumor)
Gustatory - taste (usually sign of a tumor)

Question 16

How do we manage a patient who is hallucinating?

Answer 16

Do not try and convince them that their hallucinations aren’t real or that you can see them too.
Stay neutral and non-judgemental

Question 17

What are delusions?

Answer 17

False beliefs that are not in keeping with a person’s societal upbringing.

Question 18

What are paranoid delusions?

Answer 18

Beliefs that there are conspiracies all around. Such patients may believe that the secret services such as SIS. MI6, CIA etc are pursuing them.

Question 19

What are grandiose delusions?

Answer 19

These patients think that they are better than others. They may think of themselves as the president or royalty or god.

Question 20

What are persecutory delusions?

Answer 20

Beliefs that people are always insulting or putting down the sufferer. Such patients may believe that all their friends are plotting behind their backs.

Question 21

What are the common personality disorders?

Answer 21

Paranoia
Antisocial behaviour
Borderline personality disorder
OCD

Question 22

What is antisocial personality disorder?

Answer 22

These people have no regards for the rights of others nor do they show any remorse when they infringe the rights of others. Many serial killers show antisocial personality behaviour. They were previously known as psychopaths.

Question 23

What is borderline personality disorder?

Answer 23

These patients have very unstable personal relationships. They take extreme actions to avoid perceived abandonment by friends or lowers.
Most patients displaying self harm behaviour have borderline personality disorder.

Question 24

What is an obsession?

Answer 24

A pervasive thought or idea that someone cannot get out of their head.

Question 25

What is compulsion?

Answer 25

An overwhelming desire to carry out an action - often with the belief that some harm will arise if the action is not carried out.

Question 26

What are cognitive disorders?

Answer 26

Associated with processes in the brain such as stroke, Alzheimers, Parkinsons and brain injury.

Question 27

What is delirium?

Answer 27

The sudden onset of hallucinations with fluctuating consciousness and disorientation

Question 28

What is dementia?

Answer 28

Gradual onset of memory loss followed by impairment of everyday activities. People with dementia have differing symptoms and rates at which their symptoms change.

Question 29

What are somatoform disorders?

Answer 29

Where people often experience symptoms of an illness that is not real. The most common symptom they will feel is pain.

Question 30

What is conversion disorder?

Answer 30

Psychogenic unresponsiveness. Usually involves a patient being unconscious for no apparent reason. They should be treated as any other unconscious patient.

Question 31

What is a behavioural emergency?

Answer 31

A crisis situation where the patients behaviour is disturbing to himself, his family and his community.
Organic or structural disorder
Metabolic disorder
Intoxication

Question 32

What is organic or structural disorder?

Answer 32

Head injury, hypoxia, stroke, tumour and CNS infection such as menigitis.

Question 33

What are the five steps to follow when attending a mental health emergency?

Answer 33

Assess the scene for safety
Assess the patients signs and symptoms
Rule out any treatable underlying medical causes for the behaviour
Respond appropriately to reduce the patients symptoms
Refer the patient appropriately

Question 34

What is the nine point assessment plan?

Answer 34

Appearance
Behaviour
Speech
Mood
Response
Perceptions
Thought content
Thought flow
Concentration

Question 35

What are the risk factors for suicide?

Answer 35

Elderly
Family history of suicide
Single, widowed or divorced
Recent loss of loved one
Severe depression
Under treatment for drug and alcohol abuse
Previous attempts or gestures and self-destructive behaviour
Access to means of suicide such as guns or pills
Current diagnosis of serious illness
Arrest, imprisonment or loss of job