06/07/2024
Health & Medicine.
Conditions & Diseases.
Mental Disorders summary.
Sigmund Freud 1921.
mental disorder,
Any illness with a psychological origin, manifested either in symptoms of emotional distress or in abnormal behaviour.
Most mental disorders can be broadly classified as either psychoses
or neuroses .
(neurosis; psychosis).
Psychoses
(e.g., schizophrenia and bipolar disorder) are major mental illnesses characterized by severe symptoms such as delusions, hallucinations, and an inability to evaluate reality in
an objective
manner.
Neuroses are less
severe and more treatable illnesses, including depression, anxiety, and paranoia
as well as obsessive-compulsive disorders and post-traumatic stress disorders.
Some mental disorders, such as Alzheimer disease, are clearly caused by organic disease of the brain,
but the causes of
most others are either unknown or not yet verified.
Schizophrenia appear
to be partly caused by inherited genetic factors.
Some mood disorders, such as mania and depression, may be caused by imbalances of certain neurotransmitters in the brain; they are treatable by drugs that act to correct these imbalances psychopharmacologically
Neuroses often appear to be caused by psychological factors such as emotional deprivation, frustration, or abuse during childhood, and they may be treated through psychotherapy.
Certain neuroses, particularly the anxiety disorders known as phobias, may represent maladaptive responses built up into the human equivalent of conditioned reflexes.
T4 Program Summary.
T4 Program, N**i German effort—framed as a euthanasia program—to kill incurably ill, physically or mentally disabled, emotionally distraught, and
elderly people.
Adolf Hi**er initiated the program in 1939, and, while it was officially discontinued in 1941, killings continued covertly until the
Alzheimer disease Summary.
Alzheimer disease, degenerative brain disorder that develops in mid-to-late adulthood.
It results in a progressive and irreversible decline
in memory and a deterioration of various other cognitive abilities.
The disease is characterized by the destruction of nerve cells and neural connections in illness anxiety disorder
Anxiety
Summary
Illness anxiety disorder, mental disorder characterized by an excessive preoccupation with illness and a tendency to fear or believe that one has a serious disease on the basis of the presence of insignificant physical signs or symptoms.
Illness anxiety disorder is thought to be
derived from the
bipolar disorder.
Summary.
Bipolar disorder.
Mental disorder characterized by recurrent depression or mania with abrupt or gradual onsets and recoveries.
There are several types of bipolar disorder, in which the states of mania and depression may alternate cyclically, one mood state may predominate over
the other.
Politics, Law & Government
Law, Crime & Punishment
Crime & Anti-Crime
T4 summary.
Summary
T4 Program.
T4 Program
A former T4 killing centre in Hartheim, Austria.
T4 Program, also called T4 Euthanasia Program, N**i German effort to kill the mentally ill, physically or mentally disabled, emotionally distraught, and elderly.
Adolf Hi**er initiated the program in 1939, and, while it was officially discontinued in 1941, killings continued covertly until the German military defeat in 1945.
The program was named for the Berlin address—Tiergartenstrasse
4—where the offices that directed it were located.
The criteria for inclusion in this program were not exclusively genetic, nor were they necessarily based on infirmity.
An important criterion was economic.
N**i officials assigned people to this program largely based on their economic productivity.
The N**is referred to the program’s victims as “burdensome lives” and “useless eaters.”
The program’s personnel killed people at first by starvation and lethal injection, but they later chose asphyxiation by poison gas as the preferred killing technique.
Program administrators established gas chambers at six killing centres in Germany
and Austria.
Third Reich Summary.
Third Reich, official N**i designation for the regime in Germany from January 1933 to May 1945, as the presumed successor of the medieval and early modern Holy Roman Empire of 800 to 1806 (the First Reich) and the German Empire of 1871 to 1918 (the Second Reich).
GreatN**ism Summary.
N**ism, totalitarian movement led by Adolf Hi**er as head of the N**i Party in Germany.
In its intense nationalism, mass appeal, and dictatorial rule, N**ism shared many elements with Italian fascism.
However, N**ism was far more extreme both
in its ideas and in its practice.
Mental disorder Summary.
Mental disorder, any illness with significant psychological or behavioral manifestations that is associated with either a painful or distressing symptom or an impairment in one or more important areas of functioning.
Sigmund Freud’s 1926 essay on psychoanalysis,
Mental disorders,
Germany Summary.
Germany, country of north-central Europe, traversing the continent’s main physical divisions, from the outer ranges of the Alps northward across the varied landscape of the Central German Uplands and then across the North German Plain.
One of Europe’s largest countries, Germany encompasses a wide
geography.
Alzheimer disease summary
In An Alzheimer disease
Histopathologic image show neuritic plaques in the cerebral cortex .
Alzheimer disease of
presenile onset occurs
with an onset before
age 65.
Alzheimer disease is a Degenerative brain disorder.
It occurs in mid-to-late adult life, destroying neurons and connections in the cerebral cortex and resulting in significant loss of brain mass.
Three stages of the disease are recognized: preclinical, mild cognitive impairment, and Alzheimer dementia, which is the most common form of dementia among older persons.
Some 35.6 million people worldwide were living with dementia in 2010.
Alzheimer disease progresses from short-term memory impairment to further memory loss; deterioration of language, perceptual, and motor skills; mood instability; and, in advanced stages, unresponsiveness, with loss of mobility and control of body functions.
Death ensues after a disease course lasting 2–20 years.
Originally described in 1906 by the German neuropathologist Alois Alzheimer (1864–1915) with reference to a 55-year-old person and regarded as a presenile dementia.
Alzheimer disease is
now recognized as accounting for much of the senile dementia
once thought normal
with aging.
The 10% of cases that begin before age 60 appear to result from an inherited mutation.
Early detection is based on the presence of biomarkers (physiological changes specific to or indicative of a disease) and on diagnostic imaging, with visualization of neuritic plaques and neurofibrillary tangles in the brain providing evidence of the disease.
No cure has been found.
TREATMENT.
Most treatment targets the depression,behavioral problems, and
sleeplessness that often accompany the disease.
Health & Medicine
Conditions & Diseases
Mental Disorders
illness anxiety disorder
hypochondriasis summary.
Mental disorder in which an individual is excessively preoccupied with his own health and inclined to treat insignificant physical signs or symptoms as evidence of a serious disease.
The hypochondriac may become convinced that he is ill even though he has no symptoms at all, or may exaggerate the importance of minor aches and pains, becoming obsessed
with the fear of a life-threatening
illness.
TREATMENT.
A doctor’s reassurances often have only a slight or temporary effect on the hypochondriac’s anxieties.
Hypochondriasis usually first manifests itself in early adulthood and is equally common among males and females.
In some cases it may represent a psychological coping mechanism that the individual resorts to in order to deal with stressful life situations.
Mental Disorders
bipolar disorder
summary
Mental illness characterized by the alternation of manic
and depressive states.
Depression is the more common symptom,
and many patients experience only a brief period of overoptimism and mild euphoria during the manic phase.
The condition, which seems to be inheritable, probably arises from malregulation of the amines norepinephrine, dopamine, and 5-hydroxytryptamine.
TREATMENT.
It is most commonly treated with lithium carbonate.
Mental Disorders
seasonal affective disorder(SAD)
summary
Seasonal affective disorder or seasonal affective disorder (SAD), Cyclical depression occurring in winter, apparently caused by insufficient sunlight.
It is most common in places at high latitudes and therefore with long winters and very short daylight hours.
Symptoms can include
all those of major depression, and there
is a risk of su***de.
The cause may be
related to regulation
of the body’s temperature and hormones and may involve the pineal gland and melatonin.
TREATMENT.
Exposure to intense full-spectrum light from
a set of fluorescent bulbs in a light box with
a diffusing screen has proved effective
as treatment.
Dawn simulation (exposure to low light levels in the final sleep period) and negative-ion therapy can also help.
Mental Disorders
anorexia nervosa summary
Anorexia Nervosa
summary.
For the full article,
see anorexia nervosa.
anorexia nervosa, Eating disorder, mostly in young women, characterized by a failure to maintain body weight at a normal level because of an intense desire to be thin, a fear
of gaining weight, or
a disturbance in
body image.
Anorexia nervosa typically begins in late adolescence.
In women a usual
symptom is amenorrhea.
A person with anorexia nervosa will often go to great lengths to resist eating in order to lose weight, and medical complications can be life-threatening.
TREATMENT.
Treatment can include psychological and social therapy.
