Mental dysfunction

Groenewegen H. (1999). In E. Wolters, P. Scheltens, H.W. Berendse (Eds.), Mental Dysfunction in Parkinson s Disease. Utrecht The Netherlands. Academic Pharmaceutical Productions, 22-34. 

Gaffan David. 1992. "Amygdala and the Memory of Reward." In The Amygdala Neurobiological Aspects of Emotion, Memory, and Mental Dysfunction, edited by John P. Aggleton. New York Wiley. 

Owing to brain damage-induced spellbinding, even after a devastating series of shock treatments or psychosurgery, patients may fail to understand the iatrogenic source of their mental dysfunction and instead believe that they need repeated interventions. 

Drug-induced confusion. Almost all biopsychiatric interventions can at times induce confusion, impairing the patient s awareness of the drug-induced mental dysfunction. 

In addition to Wilson et al. (1983), several other studies reported an association between TD symptoms and generalized mental dysfunction (Baribeau et al., 1993 DeWolfe et al., 1988 Itil et al., 1981 Spohn et al., 1993 Struve et al., 1983 Waddington et al., 1986a b Wolf et al., 1982 many reviewed in Breggin, 1993). After eliminating schizophrenia as a causative factor, Waddington and Youssef (1988) also found increased cognitive deficits in neuroleptic-treated bipolar patients with TD in comparison to those without the disorder. 

Studies have continued to demonstrate adverse effects of lithium on normal subjects (Glue et al., 1987 Kroph et al., 1979 Muller-Oerlinghausen et ah, 1977 Weingartner et ah, 1985). Schatzberg and Cole (1991) appropriately warned that the patient s subjective experience of mental dysfunction should be taken seriously ... 

The production of thyroid disorders by lithium is common and requires constant concern throughout the treatment. Lithium-induced hypothyroidism can produce depression and other mental dysfunction, greatly confusing and complicating the patient s clinical picture. 

Neurology recognizes that relatively minor head trauma—even without the delirium, loss of consciousness, and seizures associated with ECT— frequently produces chronic mental dysfunction and personality deterioration (Bernat et al., 1987). If a woman came to an emergency room in a confusional state from an accidental electrical shock to the head, perhaps from a short circuit in her kitchen, she would be treated as an acute medical emergency. If the electrical trauma had caused a convulsion, she might be placed on anticonvulsants to prevent a recurrence of seizures. If she developed a headache, stiff neck, and nausea—a triad of symptoms typical of post-ECT patients—she would probably be admitted for observation to the intensive care unit. Yet ECT delivers the same electrical closed-head injury, repeated several times a week, as an alleged means of improving mental function. ECT is electrically induced closed-head injury. 

Advocates of ECT are well aware that shock patients suffer from anosognosia and denial and therefore cannot fully report the extent of their memory losses and mental dysfunction. Yet these same advocates claim that patients exaggerate their post-ECT problems. 

Recently Cop-1 was assessed for its neuroprotective properties, due to its partial cross-recognition with myelin basic protein. Immunization with Cop-1 significantly improved neuronal survival following acute injury of myelinated central and peripheral neurons. Recently Cop-1 was found to be neuroprotective also under various chronic conditions and under severe mental dysfunctions. While the mechanism for its neuroprotective properties is not well understood, it was shown that immunization with Cop-1 induces T cells that can pass through the Blood-Brain Barrier and to accumulate in the injured site. Upon migration to the brain, these cells induce production of growth factors by glial cells as well as... 

Mental dysfunction in folate-deficient elderly people has been reported, but it is not easy to determine cause and effect. Folic acid has been found to correct the dementia in some patients (M18, S37). Sneath (S38) found no correlation between mental assessment score and serum or erythrocyte folate activity. However, they did find a correlation between mental assessment scores and erythrocyte folate in those patients who had low erythrocyte folate values. 

R. Breggin, M.D., who has written, among other books on the subject. Toxic Psychiatry Why Therapy, Empathy, and Love Must Replace the Drugs, Electroshock, and Biochemical Theories of the New Psychiatry . Breggin sees the medicines themselves as the cause of stiU other mental dysfunctions, especially over the long term. 

Bacterial and viral infections, and metabolic illnesses, such as thyroid disease and diabetes, can cause mental dysfunction. So, too, can abused drugs, fever, dehydration, electrolyte imbalances, toxins, or antibiotics. Patients with HIV/AIDS often become depressed or demented. Patients with multiple sclerosis or cerebrovascular disease, brain trauma, or brain tumors often have mental disabilities. 

The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (D.S.M) is scheduled to come out in 2012. The first edition was in 1980. It categorized mental illnesses on the basis of symptoms. According to Sally Satel (NY Times, Sept 13, 2007), three decades later, psychiatry still lacks a firm grasp of the causal underpinnings of mental illness...Many patients meet several diagnostic definitions at once. Today, we search only for causes of mental illness, but for modifiable molecular manifestations (3M) of mental dysfunction. ... 

An increasing cause of mental dysfunction among soldiers is posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which is becoming more common as a result of the war in Iraq. Of 1.4 million soldiers, 13% have developed PTSD, compared with 20-30% who developed PTSD after the Vietnam War. It is clear that the brain retains images of violent events that can emerge as flashbacks years after the traumatic experiences. 

Perhaps the most important effect to date of advances in molecular imaging is in the design, development and assessment of the value of PET and SPECT studies An important role is in selecting patients for these trials. Symptoms alone often provide inadequate criteria for diagnosis. Patients with schizophrenia must be separated from those patients suffering from depression or other mental dysfunction. 

Mental retardation is reported in about half of the patients, and it is infrequent for this problem to be the reason that medical assistance is first sought. Psychomotor delay may be perceived as early as the first year of life, but it may not be appreciated until later, since retardation is usually slowly progressive. Nevertheless, mental dysfunction is not the hallmark of this disease, and many patients are college graduates. Seizures occur in about to 10-15% of patients. 

The extreme form of the motor syndrome is instructive, just as the extreme form of mental deficiency in cretinism is instructive because it produces an autistic state (implicating the limbic system). The severe form of motoric dysfunction (which does not necessarily run parallel to the mental dysfunction) is characterized by marked flexion dystonia and by release of "thalamic postures." These are obligatory and stereotyped... 

Wallace and Westmoreland (1976) found abnormal EEG s in 60% of 35 patients with pernicious anemia. The most consistent finding was diffuse theta slowing, which was most marked in patients with evidence of mental dysfunction. Like the other neurologic manifestations, EEG abnormalities were not correlated to the severity of anemia. 

Deficiencies of various nutrients, primarily vitamins, impair cognition. The link is strongest for vitamin Bj2, thiamine, and niacin. Yet even for these, the role of mild subclinical or multiple deficiencies in the genesis of mental dysfunction is unclear. Most information in this field is based on animal studies often poorly applicable to the human condition or on clinical pathology complicated by advanced age, alcoholism, and intercurrent disease. There is a need for well controlled, double-blind, prospective trials to elucidate the cognitive effects of malnutrition. 

We evidently have to face up to the fact that the great majority of urban children in the UK at this time are likely to have lead burdens which are sufficiently pathogenic to produce distinct degrees of mental dysfunction. The effects are adverse, cover a broad spectrum of mental attributes, and are of types and magnitudes which render them relevant to contemporary problems of educational underachievement and social disorder. 

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