Signs and Symptoms - V

Posted by Sam Vaknin Oct 18, 2006

Symptoms are the patient's complaints. They are highly subjective and amenable to suggestion and to alterations in the patient's mood and other mental processes.

Delirium

Delirium is a syndrome which involves clouding, confusion, restlessness, psychomotor disorders (retardation or, on the opposite pole, agitation), and mood and affective disturbances (lability). Delirium is not a constant state. It waxes and wanes and its onset is sudden, usually the result of some organic affliction of the brain.

Delusion

A belief, idea, or conviction firmly held despite abundant information to the contrary. The partial or complete loss of reality test is the first indication of a psychotic state or episode. Beliefs, ideas, or convictions shared by other people, members of the same collective, are not, strictly speaking, delusions, although they may be hallmarks of shared psychosis. There are many types of delusions:

I. Paranoid

The belief that one is being controlled or persecuted by stealth powers and conspiracies.

2. Grandiose-magical

The conviction that one is important, omnipotent, possessed of occult powers, or a historic figure.

3. Referential (ideas of reference)

The belief that external, objective events carry hidden or coded messages or that one is the subject of discussion, derision, or opprobrium, even by total strangers.

Dementia

Simultaneous impairment of various mental faculties, especially the intellect, memory, judgment, abstract thinking, and impulse control due to brain damage, usually as an outcome of organic illness. Dementia ultimately leads to the transformation of the patient's whole personality. Dementia does not involve clouding and can have acute or slow (insidious) onset. Some dementia states are reversible.

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