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Query: UMLS:C0025362 (mental retardation)
 15,878 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Folk concepts for mental disorder were studied among rural Lao people. While predominatly inferring etiology (e.g. spirit-caused disorder), certain terms also emphasized particular descriptive psychopathology or behavioral abnormality. Preventive strategies were stressed for insanity due to "excessive worry' or "broken taboo'. These broad folk categories of disorder bore considerable similarity to some psychiatric and neurologic categories within medicine. These includes psychosis, mania, neurosis, organic brain syndrome, mental retardation, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and childhood autism. Lao folk terms for mental disorder also closely resembled those of other southern Asian cultures, although illiterate tribal peoples appeared to have fewer terms than literate peasant peoples. Folk terms from more distant regions had broad similarity to those of southeast Asia, but lacked the specificity found within the region.
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PMID:Folk concepts of mental disorder among the Lao: continuities with similar concepts in other cultures and in psychiatry. 52 21

Social class and the American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic and Statistical Manual II Diagnosis were examined for all patients contracting the Department of Psychiatry over a year at a large county hospital. This sample was primarily lower class -50 per cent Class V and 33 per cent in Class IV. All diagnoses showed average class between IV and V. Organic brain syndrome, both psychiatric and non-psychotic, and mental retardation had lower average social class than other diagnoses. A small sample of the diagnosis behaviour disorder of childhood and adolescence was also lower than other diagnoses. Class V patients with mental malfunction may present differently than patients from other social classes. The absence of differences on neurosis and functional psychosis may have been due to the predominance of lower class patients, diagnosticians more familiar with lower class patients, or the allowable choice of diagnoses.
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PMID:Social class and psychiatric diagnosis: differential findings in a lower-class sample. 65 66

Mental illness affected 23 (33%) of the 69 patients with von Recklinghausen neurofibromatosis (NF-1) who were the primary subjects of this report. Moderately severe or severe mental illness, that is, grade 2 and 3 according to the Comprehensive Psychopathological Rating Scale (CPRS), was found in 15 of the 69 patients (22%). The 23 mentally ill patients did not show any uniform clinical psychiatric syndrome. The most commonly occurring psychiatric diagnoses were depressive syndrome, anxiety state with vegetative dysfunction and organic brain syndrome. There was a significant positive relation between depressive syndrome and organic brain syndrome according to the CPRS rating. Half of the 69 patients complained of mental symptoms in the form of hostile feelings and autonomic disturbances and these were the most frequent psychiatric symptoms; they were also frequent among patients without mental illness. Other common symptoms were sleep difficulties, tiredness, and aches and pains. Among patients with NF-1 there was a significantly positive relation between mental illness and mental retardation, but no significant positive relation between mental illness and physical severity of NF-1. Patients with mental illness also showed a significantly increased frequency of positive neurological findings indicating central nervous manifestations of NF-1.
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PMID:Neurofibromatosis in Gothenburg, Sweden. III. Psychiatric and social aspects. 251 61

In this study, a clinical evaluation was carried out for all patients who were at or beyond 20 years of age and known to the health services as cases of neurofibromatosis (NF) and who were resident in Gothenburg, Sweden, as of January 1, 1978. The approach of the study was clinical, with emphasis on the general somatic, psychiatric and genetic aspects of NF. The patients included in the study were ascertained by scrutiny of all available archives of medical records in the area, and by requests to every doctor in the city of Gothenburg to report any possible case of NF known to him or her. This search identified 74 patients with NF living in Gothenburg on the census day. All but 3 of these patients had definite von Recklinghausen NF (NF-1). This represents a prevalence of 1 case of NF in 4,600 adults, which must be considered a minimum frequency estimate. The 74 patients included 35 women with a mean age of 46 (+/- 17) years and 39 men with a mean age of 43 (+/- 14) years. The prevalence of NF was highest in the age range of 40-50 years, while it was significantly reduced in the ages above this range, most probably owing to an excess mortality. Sixty-nine of the original seventy-four patients were personally interviewed and examined, including the 3 without definite NF-1. The patients were classified according to the degree of severity of NF into three categories: mild, moderate and severe. The number of patients in each groups was, respectively, 18, 43 and 13. A detailed description of each patient's pigmentary abnormalities and neurofibromas (number, appearance and localization) was recorded. Findings of osseous dysplastic changes (12-16%), endocrine changes (pheochromocytoma, 3%), malignant disease (sarcoma, 4%), epilepsy (3%) and other somatic diseases were also recorded. Mild mental retardation was present in 45% of the patients. The mental retardation did not appear progressive, and severe retardation was not found. Mental illness occurred in 23 (33%) patients, defined as mild in 8, moderate in 7 and severe in 8. No uniform psychiatric syndrome was found. Depressive syndrome, anxiety state with vegetative dysfunction and organic brain syndrome were most frequently observed. Hostile feelings and autonomic disturbances were the most common symptoms, each found in 50% of all patients. The frequency of abnormal neurological findings, presumably indicating manifestations of NF-1 in the central nervous system, was significantly increased among the patients with mental illness.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
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PMID:Neurofibromatosis in Gothenburg, Sweden. I. Background, study design and epidemiology. 251 25

Two double-blind trials comparing loxapine and thioridazine were conducted in hospitalized adult males diagnosed as having symptoms of chronic psychosis associated with organic brain syndrome or mental retardation. The drugs were administered orally in the ranges of loxapine 10--150 mg/day and thioridazine 150--750 mg/day for 13 weeks. In the first trial loxapine was found to be generally superior to thioridazine on the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale, Nurses Observation Scale for In-Patient Evaluation and Clinical Global Impression. The second trial failed to confirm this superiority. The heterogeneity of diagnostic categories included may explain the discrepancy. Extra-pyramidal symptoms and sedative effects were common to both groups and consistent with the pharmacologic profiles of the study drugs.
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PMID:Loxapine versus thioridazine in the treatment of organic psychosis. 735

A cohort of 199 individuals with mental retardation referred for behavioral and psychiatric crisis intervention services was studied to determine attributes differentiating physically aggressive behavior from other behavioral problems. Individuals with aggressive and nonaggressive behavior had similar neurological histories and current medical status and similar levels of seizure disorders and CNS abnormalities. Aggressive individuals more often had psychiatric diagnoses of organic brain syndrome, but frequencies of this diagnosis in each group were small. Current aggression was predicted by gender, level of mental retardation, and history of previous institutional placement; the strongest predictor was history of aggression. These data suggest a complex equation to describe social inadequacy involving interactions between CNS functioning and developmental cognitive and social variables that are only partially defined at this time. Further work to characterize this interaction almost certainly must include a prospective longitudinal analysis of social and developmental functions early in life.
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PMID:Characteristics of community-based individuals with mental retardation and aggressive behavioral disorders. 805 99

Several drugs are apparently effective in treating pathologic anger and aggression. Because many of the studies on aggressive populations allowed the use of concomitant medications, it is unclear whether the efficacy of each drug in a particular population is dependent on the presence of other medications, such as antipsychotic agents. Finally, one needs to be circumspect in inferring efficacy of a particular drug in aggressive patients with neuropsychiatric conditions other than the ones in which some efficacy has been established. Lithium appears to be an effective treatment of aggression among nonepileptic prison inmates, mentally retarded and handicapped patients, and among conduct-disordered children with explosive behavior. Certainly, lithium would be the treatment of choice in bipolar patients with excessive irritability and anger outbursts, and it has been shown to be effective in this population. Anticonvulsant medications are the treatment of choice for patients with outbursts of rage and abnormal EEG findings. The efficacy of these drugs in patients without a seizure disorder, however, remains to be established, with the exception perhaps of valproate and carbamazepine. In fact, dyphenylhydantoin did not appear to be effective in treating aggressive behavior in children with temper tantrums and was found to be effective in only a prison population. There is some evidence for the efficacy of carbamazepine and valproate in treating pathologic aggression in patients with dementia, organic brain syndrome, psychosis, and personality disorders. As Yudofsky et al point out in their review of the literature, although traditional antipsychotic drugs have been used widely to treat aggression, there is little evidence for their effectiveness in treating aggression beyond their sedative effect in agitated patients or their antiaggressive effect among patients whose aggression is related to active psychosis. Antipsychotic agents appear to be effective in treating psychotic aggressive patients, conduct-disordered children, and mentally retarded patients, with only modest effects in the management of pathologic aggression in patients with dementia. Furthermore, at least in one study, these drugs were found to be associated with increased aggressiveness in mentally retarded subjects. On the other hand, atypical antipsychotic agents (i.e., clozapine, risperidone, and olanzapine) may be more effective than traditional antipsychotic drugs in aggressive and violent populations, as they have shown efficacy in patients with dementia, brain injury, mental retardation, and personality disorders. Similarly, benzodiazepines can reduce agitation and irritability in elderly and demented populations, but they also can induce behavioral disinhibition. Therefore, one should be careful in using this class of drugs in patients with pathologic aggression. Beta-blockers appear to be effective in many different neuropsychiatric conditions. These drugs seem effective in reducing violent and assaultive behavior in patients with dementia, brain injury, schizophrenia, mental retardation, and organic brain syndrome. As pointed out by Campbell et al in their review of the literature, however, systematic research is lacking, and little is known about the efficacy and safety of beta-blockers in children and adolescents with pathologic aggression. Although widely used in the management of pathologic aggression, the use of this class of drugs has been limited partially by marked hypotension and bradycardia, which are side effects common at the higher doses. The usefulness of the antihypertensive drug clonidine in the treatment of pathologic aggression has not been assessed adequately, and only marginal benefits were observed with this drug in irritable autistic and conduct disorder children. Psychostimulants seem to be effective in reducing aggressiveness in brain-injured patients as well as in violent adolescents with oppositional or conduct disorders, particu
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PMID:Psychopharmacologic treatment of pathologic aggression. 919 23

An association between personality disorder (PD) pathology, including symptoms of all PD types and Axis I disorders, and suicidal behaviour was studied in a series of 90 non-schizophrenic, non-bipolar in-patients of both sexes without mental retardation or organic brain syndrome. All of these patients, who scored positively on the SCID-II-PQ, were interviewed with the PDE and SCID-P, and with the Structured interview for the study of childhood trauma provided with supplementary items reflecting suicidal behaviour. Mood disorders were found to be significantly correlated with cluster C pathology (PD pathology always being expressed by dimensional PDE scores) and eating disorders were significantly correlated with cluster B pathology in women. Psychoactive substance use disorders were mainly correlated with cluster B pathology and anxiety disorders with cluster C pathology in both sexes. Suicidal behaviour was correlated with PD pathology of all clusters in women, but not in men. In women a strong correlation was found between suicidal behaviour and history of childhood trauma, especially sexual abuse. The results of this study indicate that there is some specificity with regard to the Axis I/Axis II association, more so in relation to PD clusters than in relation to the individual PD types. However, the relationships between PD pathology and Axis I disorders and suicidal behaviour are complex, and they differ between the sexes.
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PMID:Possible correlates of DSM-III-R personality disorders. 942 38