Signs And Symptoms In Psychiatry Flashcards
Name the 3 spheres which represent mental functioning
- Behavioural
- Cognitive
- Emotion
Name the 10 subdivisions within cognition
Memory
Perception
Thought
General knowledge
Intelligence
Insight
Orientation
Judgement
Attention and concentration
Consciousness
Define thinking
A mental activity which can only be described by a person’s speech - cannot be observed
3 categories that thinking is divided into
- Stream of thought
- Form of thought
- Content of thought
Examples of disturbances of stream of thought and their definitions
- pressure of speech: rapid, forceful, loud speech seen in schizophrenia, bipolar etc.
- poverty of speech: inadequate amount of words used during speech - often monosyllabic
- poverty of content of speech: adequate speech but the information given will be vague
- blocking: when the person speaking loses their train of thought mid-sentence and they will be unable to complete the sentence
Examples of disturbances of form of thought
Concrete thinking
Tangentiality
Circumstantiality
Flight of ideas
Loosening of associations
Word salad
Clang association
Neologism
Echolalia
Palilalia
Perseveration
Give the definitions for the form of thought disturbances:
Concrete thinking
Tangentiality
Circumstantiality
Flight of ideas
Loosening of associations
Word salad
Clang association
Neologism
Echolalia
Palilalia
Perseveration
- literal meaning is taken instead of implied meaning like in proverbs
- when the person goes off a different tangent mid sentence and they are then unable to finish
- unnecessary information given initially but then answer is reached
- jumping from one idea to another usually with the stimuli from previous idea or external stimuli
- unconnected ideas shift from 1 topic to another, severe speech may be incoherent
- mixture of different words that are unconnected to one another
- speech of different words directed by sound - rhyming can be dominant
- formation of new word from old syllables
- repetition of a word or phrase said by another person by another
- repetition of one’s own words or phrase
- repetition of the same answer to different questions
What are the examples of disturbances of content of thought - 4
- Delusion
- Overvalued idea
- Obsesssion
- Suicidal ideation
Define delusion
Fixed false belief which cannot be accepted by persons of the same social standard
Delusion types + brief meaning of each verbally
Persecutory
Grandiose
Delusion of reference
Pathological jealousy
Erotomanic delusion
Delusions of control
Nihilistic
Somatic
Bizarre
Define obsession
Pathological recurrent and persistent idea which cannot be eliminated consciously and is associated with anxiety and in most cases compulsion
Define suicidal ideation
Recurrent idea affecting the individual to end their own life
Perception?
Process by which a person interprets sensory stimuli through the sense organs
3 subdivisions of perceptual disturbances
- Hallucinations
- Illusions
- Unreality states
Give examples of types of perceptual disturbances under the different subdivisions
Hallucinations: auditory, visual, olfactory, gustatory and tactile
Illusions: auditory, visual, olfactory, gustatory and tactile
Unreality states: depersonalisation and derealisation 
Define depersonalisation
An alteration in the perception or experience of the self, so that one feels detached from reality or different in some way that occurs under extreme stress or fatigue 
Define derealisation
An alteration in the perception or experience of the external world so that it seems strange or unreal that the environment changed while nothing has changed in it 
Memory?
A process whereby what is experienced or learned is established as a record in the CNS (registration), where it maintains information over periods of time (retention), and can be recollected from storage at the will (recall) which is a process of bringing stored memories into consciousness 
Differentiate between the 2 disturbances in memory?
Amnesia: partial or total, inability to record, past experiences, maybe medical or psychological in origin
Paramnesia: fortification of memory, by distortion of recall
Amnesia types and descriptions
- anterograde: inability to recall recent events
- retrograde: inability to recall remote events
- total: inability to recall recent and remote events
- circumscribed: inability to recall events from limited time
Paramnesia types and descriptions
- Falsification: unconscious adding of false details to a true memory
- Confabulation: unconscious filling of gaps in memory or untrue experiences that the patient believes but that have no basis in fact
- Deja vu: an abnormal experience where the individual feels that a particular or unique event has happened before in the same way
- Jemais vu: an abnormal experience where an individual feels that a routine or familiar has never happened before
- Hypermnesia:
Consciousness?
A state of awareness of the self and of the environment (time, place, person) and the ability to respond properly to stimuli (internal, external). The levels of consciousness can vary between the extremes of alertness and coma.
Disturbance of consciousness
- Confused
- Delirious
- Somnolent
- Obtunded
- Stuporous
- Comatose
Define the following:
-Confused
- Delirious
- Somnolent
- Obtunded
- Stuporous
- Comatose
- Confused: disorientated; impaired thinking and responses - people who do not respond quickly with information about their name, location and time are confused
- Delirious: disorientation, restlessness, reduced awareness and possible hallucinations
- Somnolent: person is always in an excessively drowsy state and responds to stimuli by mumbling
- Obtunded: decreased alertness, slowed psychomotor responses
- Stuporous: someone who is always in a sleepy state and only responds to pain stimuli
- comatose: some who cannot be aroused and does not respond to any stimuli
