Items in FPM with MESH term: Mental Disorders
Witnessing Domestic Violence: the Effect on Children - Medicine and Society
Family Physicians Are an Important Source of Mental Health Care - Graham Center Policy One-Pagers
Psychological Interventions for Noncardiac Chest Pain - Cochrane for Clinicians
ABSTRACT: The mental status examination is an essential tool that aids physicians in making psychiatric diagnoses. Familiarity with the components of the examination can help physicians evaluate for and differentiate psychiatric disorders. The mental status examination includes historic report from the patient and observational data gathered by the physician throughout the patient encounter. Major challenges include incorporating key components of the mental status examination into a routine office visit and determining when a more detailed examination or referral is necessary. A mental status examination may be beneficial when the physician senses that something is "not quite right" with a patient. In such situations, specific questions and methods to assess the patient's appearance and general behavior, motor activity, speech, mood and affect, thought process, thought content, perceptual disturbances, sensorium and cognition, insight, and judgment serve to identify features of various psychiatric illnesses. The mental status examination can help distinguish between mood disorders, thought disorders, and cognitive impairment, and it can guide appropriate diagnostic testing and referral to a psychiatrist or other mental health professional.
Recognizing Mental Illness in Culture-bound Syndromes - Curbside Consultation
Reaching Out to an Impaired Physician - Feature
ABSTRACT: The prevalence of patients with psychiatric disorders in primary care settings indicates that family physicians have a need for a diagnostic manual suited to the realities of their practice. This article reviews the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed., primary care version (DSM-IV-PC) and highlights the ways it accommodates the clinical needs of family physicians. DSM-IV-PC emphasizes the use of nine diagnostic algorithms for the most prevalent psychiatric disorders in primary care. The authors review the conceptual similarities between DSM-IV and DSM-IV-PC and the diagnostic features that are unique to DSM-IV-PC, and offer an illustrative case that incorporates a DSM-IV-PC approach to diagnosis. The authors also outline clinical and technical issues that remain unresolved in DSM-IV-PC.
ABSTRACT: The psychiatric review of symptoms is a useful screening tool for identifying patients who have psychiatric disorders. The approach begins with a mnemonic encompassing the major psychiatric disorders: depression, personality disorders, substance abuse disorders, anxiety disorders, somatization disorder, eating disorders, cognitive disorders and psychotic disorders. For each category, an initial screening question is used, with a positive response leading to more detailed diagnostic questions. Useful interviewing techniques include transitioning from one subject to another rather than abruptly changing subjects, normalization (phrasing a question to convey to the patient that such behavior is normal or understandable) and symptom assumption (phrasing a question to imply that it is assumed the patient has engaged in such behavior). The psychiatric review of symptoms is both rapid and thorough, and can be readily incorporated into the standard history and physical examination.
ABSTRACT: Management of the most common type of dementia--Alzheimer's disease--is becoming increasingly sophisticated. Differentiation of Alzheimer's disease from vascular dementia has become therapeutically important, since the choice of treatments depends on the diagnosis. Two cholinesterase inhibitors, donepezil and tacrine, are labeled for use in patients with Alzheimer's disease. Other therapies, such as estrogen, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and vitamin E, are sometimes used and show promise in delaying the progression of this dementia. Behavior problems, which often accompany the disease, can be managed using environmental modification, alterations in caregiving and medication. In the terminal phase of the illness, quality care involves implementing advance directives, communicating with the family, individualizing care and attending to patient comfort.