Transcript Conversion Disorder Health Article

Conversion Disorder
Evelyn Perez
Period 3
May 5, 2011
Definition
-A physical reaction to anxiety
-Mayo Clinic:condition in which a person shows psychological
stress in physical ways.
Associated Features
• • La Belle indifference or beautiful lack of concern:
People who suffer from Conversion symptoms may
dismiss them and pay little atteintion to them.
• It is most common to occur when a person is going through a
psychosocial stress:
Death of a love one or warfare
Associated Features
DSM-IV-TR Criteria
A. One or more symptoms or deficits affecting voluntary motor or
sensory function that suggest a neurological or other general medical
condition.
B. Psychological factors are judged to be associated with the
symptom or deficit because the initiation or exacerbation of the
symptom or deficit is preceded by conflicts or other stressors.
C. The symptom or deficit is not intentionally produced or feigned (as
in Factitious Disorder or Malingering).
D. The symptom or deficit cannot, after appropriate investigation, be
fully explained by a general medical condition, or by the direct effects of
a substance, or as a culturally sanctioned behavior or experience.
E. The symptom or deficit causes clinically significant distress or
impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of
functioning or warrants medical evaluation.
F. The symptom or deficit is not limited to pain or sexual dysfunction,
does not occur exclusively during the course of Somatization Disorder,
and is not better accounted for by another mental disorder.
Associated Features
Specify type of symptom or deficit: 4 catergories
-Motor symptom or deficits: a person may experience
problems like impaired coordination, paralysis, swallowing and
speaking difficulties and urinary retention.
-sensory symptoms or deficits:individuals lose a sense of
touch or ability to go through physical pain,double vision,
blindness, or deafness
-Seizures or convulsions
-Mixed presentations-mix of all the aboves
Etiology
Some potential causes:
-Stress or emotional crisis
- Depression
-History of physical or sexual abuse primarily in childhood
Prevalence
-Women are at high rate to suffering from convulsion disorder
-Adolescence and early adulthood
-Most common in countries in which medicine and psychology
are less known
-When it runs in family it usually appears at ages 10 and 35
Treatment
Physical Therapy
Using negative reinforcements are suggested as the basis for
behavioral treatment in children
Psychotherapy and stress management help reduce symptoms
Prognosis
• Gets better within a few weeks
• Not life threatening but complications can be
debiliating
• People who suffer from conversion disorder may also
suffer from Depression, Generalized Anxiety,
Obsessive- Compulsive disorder.
References
Conversion Disorder. (n.d.). Retrieved May 3, 2011, from Mayo Clinic website: rey, R. J.
(2003).
Conversion Disorder Health Article. Retrieved May 3, 2011, from The Gale Group Inc.
website:
http://health.yahoo.net/galecontent/conversion-disorder
Frey, R. J. (2003). Conversion Disorder Health Article. Retrieved May 3,2011,from The
Gale
Group Inc. website:http://health.yahoo.net/galecontent/conversion- disorder#definition
Halgin, R.P., & Whitbourne,S.K. (2005) Abnormal Psychology: linical Perspectives
on
Psychological disorder, New York, NY:McGraw Hill
Myers, D.G.(2011). Myers' Psychology for AP, New York, NY: Worth Publishers.
Powsner, S. (n.d.). Conversion Disorder in Emergency Medicine Clinical Presentation.
Retrieved
May 3, 2011, from Medscape website: http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/805361clinical#showall
Discussion Questions
-Why are women suffering from this disorder and how can it be
diminished?