Psychiatry Flashcards
(140 cards)
MSE component sections?
Appearance & Behaviour
- Assessed as going along
Speech
- Flow, form (speed, tone), content
Mood
- Subjective (pt) then objective (yours)
- Assess Sleep, eating, interest, attention, SUICIDE/SELF HARM, energy levels etc.
Affect
- Reactive/non-reactive (can be on spectrum)
- Congruent/non-congruent
- Normal/Flattened/Blunted
Thought Form
- Ordered free flowing, making sense
Thought Content
- Preoccupations/obsessions, self-harm/suicide, delusions
- Ask are your thoughts your own.
Perceptual disturbances
- Have you seen/felt/heard anything that others have not that scares you or seems a bit intimidating?
Cognition
- Orientation, Memory, concentration, MMSE if appropriate.
Insight
- Understanding of illness - what do you think is going on, do you think this is a mental illness?
- Agreeing to treatment
- Capacity to consent to treatment (if appropriate)
First order symptoms for schizophrenia?
Auditory hallucinations (Commentary, thoughts spoken aloud and 3rd person)
Thought withdrawal, insertion and broadcasting.
Somatic hallucinations (touched, strangled, sexual pleasure)
Delusional perception - see something real but make a delusion about it.
Three types of delirium?
Hypoactive: lethargy, reduced motor activity - most common
Hyperactive: agitation, irritability, restlessness
Mixed
Clinical features of delirium?
DELIRIUM:
Disordered thinking: slowed, irrational and incoherent thoughts
Euphoric, fearful, depressed or angry
Language impaired: rambling speech, repetitive or disruptive
Illusions, delusions and hallucinations
Reversal of sleep-wake cycle
Inattention
Unaware/disorientated
Memory deficits
ICD-10 criteria for diagnosis of delirium?
Impairment of consciousness and attention
Global disturbances in cognition
Psychomotor disturbance
Disturbance of sleep-wake cycle
Emotional disturbances
Rough pathophysiological changes in Alzheimers disease?
Degeneration of cholinergic neurones in the nucleus basalis of Meynert (leading to a deficiency of acetylcholine)
Microscopic changes: neurofibrillary tangles (intracellular) and B-amyloid plaque formation (extracellular).
Macroscopic: cortical atrophy (globally), widened sulci and enlarged ventricles
Types of dementia?
Alzheimers
Vascular
Dementia with lewy bodies
Fronto-temporal
Other causes: Infections (CJD, HIV), vitamin deficiencies and some others.
Causes of Lewy body dementia?
Abnormal deposition of protein (lewy body) within the neurones of the brainstem, substantia nigra and neocortex. Loss of acetylcholine outside of the brainstem and loss of dopamine within (some parkinsonian symptoms)
Pathophysiology in fronto-temporal dementia?
Specific atrophy of frontal and temporal lobes.
Main divisions of the types of dementias, in terms of dysfunction?
Cortical: Alzheimers, fronto-temporal.
Subcortical: Lewy body
Vascular is mixed.
Differences in cortical dementia and subcortical dementia?
Severe memory loss in cortical, moderate in sub
Mood is low in subcortical, normal in cortical
Speech and lang shows early aphasia in cortical and dysarthria in subcortical
Coordination is impaired in subcortical dementia, normal in cortical
Dyspraxia in cortical dementia, normal in subcortical dementia
Motor speed slow in subcortical dementia
Genetic basis in Alzheimers?
Presenilin 1 and 2 and amyloid precursor protein associated with early onset alzheimers
Apoe-4 susceptibility for late onset AD.
ApoE-2 is protective.
ICD-10 classification for dementia?
A: Evidence of the following:
1. decline in memory: anterograde amnesia. (can be retro)
- Decline in other areas of cognition
B: preserved consciousness
C: Decline in emotional control or motivation, change in social behaviour:
- Emotional lability, irritability, apathy, reduced social behaviour
D: For at least 6 months
Raja’s criteria for dementia diagnosis
Dysfunction in at least 2 cognitive functions
Present in normal consciousness
With evidence of functional decline
For 6 months.
Cognitive dysfunction in early alzheimers?
Memory lapses, difficulty finding words, forgetting names of places/people.
Cognitive dysfunction in progressing alzheimers?
Dyspraxia, speech and language dysfunction, difficulty with executive functioning
Cognitive dysfunction in late stage alzheimers?
Disorientation to time and place
Incontinence
Apathy
Depression
Agitation
Definition of a delusion?
A fixed, false belief which is firmly held despite evidence to the contrary and goes against the individuals social and cultural belief system.
Definition of a hallucination?
A perception in the absence of an external stimulus.
Definition of a thought disorder?
Inability to form thoughts from logically connected ideas.
Cuases of psychosis?
Organic:
- Drug induced
- Iatrogenic
- Complex partial epilepsy
- Delirium
- Dementia
- HD
- SLE
- Syphilis
- Endocrine disturbances & metabolic disorders
Non-organic causes
- Schizophrenia
- Schizotypal disorder
- Schizoaffective disorder
- Acute psychotic episode
- Mood disorders
- Drug-induced
- Delusional disorder
What is schizotypal disorder?
It’s latent schizophrenia
- eccentric behaviour
- suspiciousness
- unusual speech
- deviations of thinking
What is schizoaffective disorder?
A disorder characterized by both symptoms of schizophrenia and a mood disorder in the same episode of illness. Mood symptoms need to meet criteria for depression or mania, as well as two symptoms of schizophrenia.
Pathophysiology of schizophrenia? (5)
- Genetic role - monozygotic twin studies show 48% concordance rate.
- Dopamine hypothesis - mesolimbic pathway has overactive dopamine stimulation - positive symptoms.
Mesocortical pathway has underactive stimulation leading to negative symptoms. - Factors that interfere with early neurodevelopment e.g. low birth weight, fetal injury. Lead to abnormalities in teh developing brain.
- Adverse life events and stress. Different fluffy psychological arguments here:
Stress-vulnerability model predicts that schizophrenia occurs due to environment stressors interacting with a genetic predisposition or brain injury.
- Some involvement of glutamate - perhaps a reduction of glutamate in the frontal lobe, leading to negative symptoms