Signs and symptoms of psychiatric illness Flashcards
Consciousness
Apperception
Sensorium
Consciousness: state of awareness
Apperception: perception modified by one’s own emotions and thoughts. Sensorium: state of cognitive functioning of the special senses (sometimes used as a synonym for consciousness). Disturbances of consciousness are most often associated with brain pathology.
attention
Distractibility
Selective inattention:
attention is the amount of effort exerted in focusing on certain portions of an experience; ability to sustain a focus on one activity; ability to concentrate
Distractibility: inability to concentrate attention; attention drawn to unimportant or irrelevant external stimuli
Selective inattention: blocking out only those things that generate anxiety
Hypervigilance
Trance
Hypervigilance: excessive attention and focus on all internal and external stimuli, usually secondary to delusional or paranoid states
Trance: focused attention and altered consciousness, usually seen in hypnosis, dissociative disorders, and ecstatic religious experiences
Emotion Affect Appropriate affect Inappropriate affect Blunted affect Restricted or constricted affect Flat affect Labile affect
Emotion: a complex feeling state with psychic, somatic, and behavioral components that is related to affect and mood
A. Affect: observed expression of emotion; may be inconsistent with patient’s description of emotion
Appropriate affect: condition in which the emotional tone is in harmony with the accompanying idea, thought, or speech; also further described as broad or full affect, in which a full range of emotions is appropriately expressed
Inappropriate affect: disharmony between the emotional feeling tone and the idea, thought, or speech accompanying it.
Blunted affect: a disturbance in affect manifested by a severe reduction in the intensity of externalized feeling tone.
Restricted or constricted affect: reduction in intensity of feeling tone less severe than blunted affect but clearly reduced
Flat affect absence or near absence of any signs of affective expression; voice monotonous, face immobile.
Labile affect: rapid and abrupt changes in emotional feeling tone, unrelated to external stimuli.
Mood Dysphoric mood Euthymic mood Expansive mood Irritable mood Mood swings
B. Mood: a pervasive and sustained emotion, subjectively experienced and reported by the patient and observed by others; examples include depression, elation, anger
Dysphoric mood: an unpleasant mood
Euthymic mood: normal range of mood, implying absence of depressed or elevated mood
Expansive mood: expression of one’s feelings without restraint, frequently with an overestimation of one’s significance or importance
Irritable mood: easily annoyed and provoked to anger
Mood swings (labile mood): oscillations between euphoria and depression or anxiety
Elevated mood Euphoria: Ecstasy: Depression: Anhedonia Grief or mourning Alexithymia
Elevated mood: air of confidence and enjoyment; a mod more cheerful than usual
Euphoria: intense elation with feelings of grandeur
Ecstasy: feeling of intense rapture
Depression: psychopathological feeling of sadness
Anhedonia: loss of interest in and withdrawal from all regular and pleasurable activities, often associated with depression
Grief or mourning: sadness appropriate to a real loss
Alexithymia: inability or difficulty in describing or being aware of one’s emotions or moods.
Motor behaviour (conation Echopraxia Catatonia Cataleps Catatonic excitement
Motor behaviour (conation): the aspect of the psyche that includes impulses, motivations, wishes, drives, instincts, and cravings, as expressed by a person’s behaviour or motor activity
Echopraxia: pathological imitation of movements of one person by another
Catatonia: motor anomalies in nonorganic disorders (as opposed to disturbances of consciousness and motor activity secondary to organic pathology)
Catalepsy: general term for an immobile position that is constantly maintained
Catatonic excitement: agitated, purposeless motor activity, uninfluenced by external stimuli
) Catatonic stupor
Catatonic rigidity
) Catatonic posturing
Cerea flexibilitas (waxy flexibility
c) Catatonic stupor: markedly slowed motor activity, often to a point of immobility and seeming unawareness of surroundings
d) Catatonic rigidity: voluntary assumption of a rigid posture, held against all efforts to be moved
e) Catatonic posturing: voluntary assumption of an inappropriate or bizarre posture, generally maintained for long periods of time
f) Cerea flexibilitas (waxy flexibility): the person can be molded into a position that is then maintained; when the examiner moves the person’s limb, the limb feels as if it were made of wax
Negativism Cataplexy Stereotypy Mannerism Automatism Command automatism Mutism
Negativism: motiveless resistance to all attempts to be moved or to all instructions
Cataplexy: temporary loss of muscle tone and weakness precipitated by a variety of emotional states
Stereotypy: repetitive non goal directed fixed pattern of physical action or speech
Mannerism: ingrained, goal directed, habitual involuntary movement
Automatism: automatic performance of an act or acts generally representative of unconscious symbolic activity
Command automatism: automatic following of suggestions (also called automatic obedience)
Mutism: voicelessness without structural abnormalities
Hyperactivity (hyperkinesis
Overactivity
Psychomotor agitation
Compulsion
- Overactivity
Psychomotor agitation: excessive motor and cognitive overactivity, usually nonproductive and in response to inner tension
Hyperactivity (hyperkinesis): restless, aggressive, destructive activity, often associated with some underlying brain pathology
Compulsion: uncontrollable impulse to perform an act repetitively
Thinking
Psychosis
Illogical thinking
Magical thinking
Thinking: goal-directed flow of ideas, symbols, and associations initiated by a problem or a task and leading toward a reality-oriented conclusion; when a logical sequence occurs, thinking is normal; parapraxis (unconsciously motivated lapse from logic is also called Freudian slip) considered part of normal thinking
General disturbances in form or process of thinking
Psychosis: inability to distinguish reality from fantasy
Illogical thinking: thinking containing erroneous conclusions or internal contradictions
Magical thinking: a form of dereistic thought; thinking that is similar to that of the preoperational phase in children (Jean Piaget), in which thoughts, words , or actions assume power (for example, they can cause or prevent events)
Tangentiality Incoherence Perseveration Echolalia Loosening of associations Flight of ideas
Tangentiality: inability to have goal-directed associations of thought; patient never gets from desired point to desired goal
Incoherence: thought that, generally, is not understandable; running together of thoughts or words with no logical or grammatical connection, resulting in disorganization
Perseveration: persisting response to a prior stimulus after a new stimulus has been presented, often associated with cognitive disorders
Echolalia: psychopathological repeating of words or phrases of one person by another; tends to be repetitive and persistent, may be spoken with mocking or staccato intonation
Loosening of associations: flow of thought in which ideas shift from one subject to another in a completely unrelated way; when severe, speech may be incoherent
Flight of ideas: rapid, continuous verbalizations or plays on words produce constant shifting from one idea to another; the ideas tend to be connected, and in the less severe form a listener may be able to follow them
Delusion Bizarre delusion Systematized delusion Nihilistic delusion Paranoid delusions
Specific disturbances in content of though
Delusion: false belief, based on incorrect inference about external reality, not consistent with patient’s intelligence and cultural background, that cannot be corrected by reasoning
Bizarre delusion: an absurd, totally implausible, strange false belief
Systematized delusion: false beliefs united by a single event or theme
Nihilistic delusion: false feeling that self, others, or the world is nonexistent or ending
Paranoid delusions: includes persecutory delusion and delusions of reference, control, and grandeur
