Psychiatric/Mental Health Nursing: Signs and Symptoms

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering psychiatric signs, symptoms, disorders of thought, perception, mood, affect, motor activity, and cognitive sensorium based on Psychiatric/Mental Health Nursing lecture notes.

Mental Health (WHO Definition)

A state of well-being in which every individual realizes her/his own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his/her community.

Disease

A specific condition in the body with a specific cause and characteristic symptoms that can be diagnosed (able to see, touch, measure, and/or smell) by a healthcare provider (objective).

Disorder

An irregular, disturbed, undetermined in origin condition, or interruption of normal functions that healthcare providers are able to see, touch, measure, and smell.

Syndrome

A number of symptoms occurring together and characterizing a specific disease.

Illness

An unhealthy, vague, and subjective condition of body or mind that causes discomfort or pain.

Signs

Clinicians' observations and objective findings.

Symptoms

The subjective experiences described by the patient.

Mental Status Examination

A structured assessment of the patient's behavioral and cognitive functioning, including appearance, behavior, thought, perception, motor activity, mood, affect, cognition, sensorium, self-concept, and self-esteem.

Thought Form (Form of Thought)

The consistent, uninterrupted, coherent, logical, and organized formation and flow of thinking towards its goal.

Formal Thought Disorder (FTD)

A disruption of the formation or structure of thought that results in disorganized speech; also used as a synonym for disorders of abstract thinking.

Abstract Thinking

The ability of a person to extract the meaning behind a proverb or give a generalized explanation.

Concrete Thinking

Thinking in which the person cannot extract the meaning behind a proverb and gives specific examples instead to illustrate the meaning.

Autistic Thinking

Thinking governed by private rules of logic and reasoning that make no sense to anyone else, characterized by preoccupation with an inner, private world.

Circumstantiality

An inability to answer a question without giving excessive and unnecessary details, though the desired goal or answer is eventually reached.

Tangentiality

A disturbance in thought form where the patient gives excessive and unnecessary details and never gets to the desired goal or answer.

Neologism

A new word created by the patient, a new meaning given to an already existing word, or the creation of new words by combining two existing words.

Perseveration (Thought)

An inability to switch ideas or responses, manifested by giving the same answer to different questions or repeatedly uttering the last word of speech.

Echolalia

Psychopathological, inappropriate, and persistent repetition of words or phrases of one person by another (parrot-like speech).

Verbigeration (Cataphasia)

Meaningless and stereotyped repetition of specific words or phrases in the middle of speech.

Incoherence (Loss of Association)

Communication that is disconnected, disorganized, or incomprehensible.

Word Salad

An incoherent mixture of words or phrases.

Clanging (Clang Association)

A severe form of flight of ideas whereby ideas are related only by the sound or rhyming of a word rather than by its meaning.

Flight of Ideas

Jumping from one idea to another depending on external or internal stimuli, where ideas tend to be connected and the listener may follow (rapid succession of fragmentary thoughts).

Aphasia

Inability to speak (loss of voice) caused by a brain lesion, which should be differentiated from speech loss caused by psychiatric illness.

Aphonia

Inability to speak (loss of voice) that may be caused by a vocal cord lesion.

Thought Blocking

Abrupt interruption in the train of thinking before a thought or idea is finished, where after a brief pause the person indicates no recall of what was being said or going to be said.

Pressure of Thought

Rapid speech that is increased in amount and difficult to interrupt.

Poverty of Thought

Restriction in the amount of speech used, resulting in speech that is brief and uncommunicative.

Retardation of Thought

Slow speech accompanied by a prolonged latent period before a response is given.

Mutism

Total absence of speech, often associated with depression or post-traumatic stress.

Reality Testing

The ability to differentiate between the external world and the internal world, or the tendency to assess the here-and-now reality of any given moment and separate reality from fantasy.

Delusion

A false, fixed belief not based on external reality, not shared by individuals of the same demographic background or culture, and that cannot be corrected by reasoning or logical argument.

Systematized (Non-Bizarre) Delusion

A group of delusions that appears to be logical and united by a single event or theme (e.g., believing one is under constant police surveillance).

Unsystematized (Bizarre) Delusion

A group of delusions that cannot be believed or related to each other (e.g., believing internal organs were replaced without any surgery).

Mood-Congruent Delusion

A delusion that is parallel to or has an association with the patient's current emotional state (e.g., a depressed patient believing they caused the destruction of the world).

Mood-Incongruent (Mood-Neutral) Delusion

A delusion that does not relate to the patient's current mood (e.g., believing one has superpowers despite undergoing a major depressive episode).

Nihilistic Delusion

The belief that oneself, others, or the world does not exist or is ending.

Cotard's Delusion (Walking Corpse Syndrome)

A belief that parts of the body such as internal organs or blood are missing, or that the patient is dying, dead, or in some cases immortal.

Poverty Delusion

The strong belief that one is financially incapacitated or deprived of all material possessions.

Somatic Delusion

A false belief involving body disease, sensations, or physical appearance (e.g., harboring a belief of having cancer or heart disease).

Delusional Parasitosis

A delusion in which one feels infested or invaded with insects, bacteria, mites, spiders, lice, fleas, worms, or other organisms.

Litigious Delusion

A pathological tendency to take legal actions due to imagined mistreatment, often involving writing complaints to responsible persons.

Jealous Delusion (Morbid Jealousy)

A false belief that one's partner or spouse is unfaithful and involved with someone else.

Infidelity Delusion

An extreme form of jealousy delusion where the patient follows the partner, locks doors and windows, commits aggressive acts, or takes legal actions to gather proof.

Persecutory Delusion

The most common paranoid delusion involving the theme of being followed, harassed, cheated, poisoned, drugged, attacked, or obstructed in goals.

Grandiose Delusion (Megalomania)

A belief that one is the greatest, strongest, fastest, richest, most knowledgeable, and/or most intelligent person ever.

Religious Delusion

A specific type of grandiose delusion characterized by the belief that the affected person is a god or chosen to act as a god.

Reference Delusion

A belief that the behavior of others, remarks, events, or objects in the patient's environment have direct personal reference to them (usually with negative meaning).

Erotomanic Delusion (Erotomania)

A pleasurable delusion where a person believes that another person, often a prominent figure, is in love with them.

Preoccupation

Centering thought on a particular idea associated with a strong affective tone.

Obsession

A persistent thought, idea, or image that is intrusive, inappropriate, cannot be eliminated from consciousness by logical effort, and causes distress.

Compulsive Behavior

The need to perform an act persistently and repetitively in response to an obsessive thought to reduce distress.

Overvalued Ideas

A false or exaggerated belief that is held with conviction but not with delusional intensity.

Passive Suicidal Ideation

Thinking about not wanting to live or imagining being dead without forming an active plan.

Active Suicidal Ideation

Thinking about different ways to die or actively forming a plan to die.

Homicidal Ideation

A recurrent idea affecting the individual compelling them to kill someone.

Phobia

An anxiety disorder defined as irrational, persistent, and exaggerated fears of objects or situations that result in a compelling desire to avoid the feared stimulus.

Impulsivity (Impulsiveness)

Failure to resist a sudden temptation, wish, or urge with little or no consideration of the consequences.

Plan to Abscond

The patient's plan to leave the hospital unexpectedly without permission, prior to completing treatment courses and paying medical bills.

Thought Possession

A false belief that one's thoughts, feelings, actions, or impulses are controlled or made by an external agency.

Thought Withdrawal

A belief that thoughts have been taken out of one's mind and that one has no power over this process.

Thought Insertion

A belief that thoughts are not one's own, but rather belong to someone else and have been inserted or implanted into one's mind.

Thought Broadcasting

A belief that others can hear one's thoughts or that thoughts are being broadcast into the air.

Hallucination

A false sensory perception occurring without an outside stimulus.

Command Hallucinations

Hallucinations in the form of instructions or directives that can appear to originate from an external source or from within the subject's head.

Formication

A subtype of tactile hallucination characterized by the distinct sensation of insects crawling over the skin.

Hypnagogic Hallucinations

Brief, normal sensory hallucinations of any modality that occur while falling asleep.

Hypnopompic Hallucinations

Brief, normal sensory hallucinations of any modality that occur while awakening from sleep.

Illusion

A false perception of a real external sensory stimulus, revealing how the mind organizes sensory input.

Depersonalization

A subjective unreality state pertaining to a person's perception of their own body, where the self feels unreal or detached (e.g., floating outside one's body).

Derealization

A subjective unreality state pertaining to a person's perception of the outside world, where the external environment feels unreal, artificial, or dreamlike.

Akathisia (Motor Restlessness)

A subjective feeling of muscular tension secondary to antipsychotic or other medication, causing restlessness, pacing, and repeated sitting and standing.

Echopraxia

The involuntary imitation or mirroring of someone else's movements.

Stereotypy

Continuous mechanical repetition of physical activities without purpose.

Mannerism

Repetitive habitual involuntary movement of large muscle groups.

Tic

An involuntary, spasmodic, stereotyped movement of small groups of muscles, usually exacerbated by stress or anxiety.

Catatonia

A complex psychomotor disorder involving the connection between mental function and movement, disrupting awareness of surroundings and causing abnormal motor, speech, and behavioral symptoms.

Catatonic Stupor

A state in which the patient cannot move, speak, or respond to stimuli, displaying unawareness of surroundings and lack of response even to painful stimuli.

Catatonic Rigidity (Catatonic Posturing)

Voluntary assumption of a rigid, inappropriate, or bizarre posture that is firmly held against all efforts to be moved.

Waxy Flexibility (Cerea Flexibilitas)

The maintenance of imposed postures, where limbs feel like wax when manipulated by the examiner and stay in position.

Negativism

Motiveless resistance or active opposition to suggestions, commands, or external stimuli (e.g., looking down when asked to look up).

Automatic Obedience (Command Automatism)

The automatic execution of requested tasks even when the tasks are inappropriate, senseless, or dangerous.

Mood

The predominant, sustained emotional state over days or weeks, described using the patient's own words.

Affect

The current, immediately observed emotional state conveyed through nonverbal behavior such as facial expressions, posture, gestures, and tone of voice.

Euthymic Mood

A normal range of mood implying the absence of depressed or pathologically elevated mood.

Dysphoric Mood

An unpleasant, uncomfortable mood state.

Anhedonia

A loss of interest in and withdrawal from all regular and pleasurable activities, often associated with depression.

Free Floating Anxiety

A severe, pervasive, and unfocused fear that is not attached to any specific idea or object.

Ambivalence

The coexistence of two opposing emotions, impulses, ideas, or wishes toward the same person, situation, or object at the same time.

Abreaction

A therapeutic process by which repressed material—especially painful experiences or conflicts—is brought back into consciousness, relived, and expressed with appropriate emotion.

Flat Affect

The absence or near absence of any sign of affective expression, presenting with a monotonous voice and an immobile face.

Labile Affect

Rapid and abrupt shifts in emotional feeling tone that are unrelated to external stimuli.

Sensorium

The totality of the parts of the brain that receive, process, and interpret sensory stimuli.

Disorientation

The disturbance in one or more parameters of awareness: person, time, or place.

Anterograde Amnesia

A form of memory loss that occurs when the brain cannot form new memories following a trauma or incident.

Retrograde Amnesia

The loss of memory for remote events or previously stored memories looking backward in time.

Confabulation

The unconscious filling of memory gaps by fabricating experiences or events that have no basis in fact; distinct from intentional lying and linked to organic pathology.

Déjà Vu

A paramnesia phenomenon wherein a new situation is subjectively experienced as having previously occurred.

Jamais Vu

A paramnesia phenomenon wherein a familiar situation is experienced as completely novel or unfamiliar.

Hypermnesia

An exaggerated degree of retention and recall, with excessive focus on internal and external stimuli.