Chapter 23 Vocab

Activites of daily living

The basic activites a person usually accomplishes during a normal day, such as eating, dresing, and bathing.

Altered mental status

A change in the way a person thinks and behaves that may signal disease in the central nervous system or elsewhere in the body.

Behavior

How a person functions or acts in response to his or her environment.

Behavioral crisis

The point at which a person’s reactions to evets interfere with activites of daily living; this becomes a psychiatric emergency when it causes a major life interruption such as attempted suicide.

Behavioral health emergency

An emergency in which abnormal behavior threatens a person’s own health and safety or the health and safety of another person - for example, when a person becomes suicidal or homicidal, or has a psychotic episode.

Depression

A persistent mood of sadness, despair, and discouragement; may be symptom of many different mental and physical disorders, or may be a disorder on its own.

Excited delirium

A serious behavioral condition in which a person exhibits agitated behavior combined with disorientation, hallucinations, or delusions; also called agitated delirium or exhaustive mania.

Functional disorder

A disorder in which there is no known physiologic reason for the abnormal functioning of an organ or organ system.

Positional asphyxia

Restrictions of chest wall movements and/or airway obstruction; can rapidly lead to sudden death.

Posttruamtic stress disorder

A delayed reaction to a prior incident. Often the result of one or more conditions concerning the incident, and may relate to an incident that involved physical harm or the threat of physical harm.

Psychiatric disorder

An illness with psychological or behavioral symptoms and/or impairment in functioning caused by a social, psychological, genetic, physical, chemical, or biologic disturbance.

Psychosis

A mental disorder characterized by the loss of contact with reality.

Schizophrenia

A complex, difficult-to-identify mental disorder whose onset typically occurs during early adulthood. Symptoms typically become more prominent over time and include delusions, hallucinations, a lack of interest in pleasure, and erratic speech.