Organic mental disorders

Question 1

What are organic mental disorders?

Answer 1

Recognnised organic explanation

Question 2

What are the common cognitive features of organic mental disorders?

Answer 2

Disorientation
Impaired attention/memory
Memory- anterograde/retrograde amnesia
Language
Judgement
Insight

Question 3

What are the common behavioural abnormalities in organic mental disorders?

Answer 3

Agitation, aggression
Slowing, psychomotor retardation
Abnormal social conduct

Question 4

What are the mood features in organic mental disorders?

Answer 4

Depression
Anxiety
Mania

Question 5

What are the psychotic features of organic mental disorders?

Answer 5

Hallucinations- commonly visual

Delusions- often persecutory

Question 6

What is delirium?

Answer 6

Transient organic mental syndrome of acute or subacute onset characterised by global cognitive impairment

Question 7

What are the presenting features of delirium?

Answer 7

Impaired attention/concentration
Anterograde memory impairment
Disorientation in time, place and person
Fluctuating levels of arousal
Disordered sleep/wake cycle
Increased/decreased psychomotor activity
Disorganised thinking- rambling, irrelevant or incoherent
Perceptual disorientations- leading to misidentifications, illusions and hallucinations
Depression, anxiety, liability

Question 8

What are the causes of delirium?

Answer 8

Infection
Medication
Alcohol/drug withdrawal
Drug abuse
Metabolic
Vitamin deficiency
Endocrinopathy
Neurological causes
Toxins/inductrial exposures
SLE
Cerebral vasculitis
Paraneoplastic syndrome

Question 9

What are the features of amnesic syndrome?

Answer 9

Anterograde and retrograde amnesia but

Preserved global intellectual abilities, registration, working memory and procedural memory

Question 10

What are the 2 types of causes of amnesic syndrome?

Answer 10

Hippocampal damage

Diencephalic damage

Question 11

What are the causes of hippocampal damage causing amnesic syndrome?

Answer 11

Herpes simplex encephalitis
Anoxia
Surgical removal of temporal lobes
Bilateral posterior cerebral artery occlusion
Closed head injury
Early ALzeheimer's

Question 12

What are the diencephalic damage causes of amnesic syndrome?

Answer 12

Korsakoff’s syndrome
3rd ventricle tumours and cysts
Bilateral thalamic infarction
Post subarachnoid haemorrhage- ego from anterior communicating artery aneurysms