What are schizoaffective disorders?
Schizoaffective disorder is actually a combination of two theoretically completely separate problems, namely schizophrenia and affective (mood) disorders. It is not at all easy to recognise this...
Mental disorders and brain tumours
Brain tumours typically result in neurological abnormalities, but in practice they can also lead to a variety of psychiatric disorders, ranging from depression to personality changes and even...
Viral infections can cause mental disorders
The exact causes of most psychiatric disorders are still unclear. It is for this reason that many scientists continue to search for factors that may be responsible for the occurrence of such...
The use of virtual reality in the treatment of psychotic disorders
The treatment of psychotic disorders is typically associated with pharmacotherapy. Indeed, medication plays a fundamental role in the treatment of psychosis, however, it is not the only way to...
Allergic diseases can increase the risk of mental disorders
It has long been known that certain somatic problems can increase the risk of mental disorders - so it comes as no surprise that, for example, diabetes or a heart attack increase the risk of...
Pathological desire to amputate one's own limb: apotemnophilia
Apotemnophilia is a rare and extremely emotionally charged psychological disorder involving a patient's desire to amputate their own limb. Despite the passage of many years since the first...
Objective tools in psychiatry - about laboratory tests
The psychiatrist tries with all available methods to create as accurate a picture as possible of the patient who comes to his office. The psychiatric examination begins with a thorough medical...
Fregoli syndrome: when a patient starts misidentifying people...
Fregoli syndrome belongs to the delusional disorders, or more precisely to the group of delusional misidentification disorders. In the course of this entity, patients may believe that different...
Gourmet syndrome (Gourmand syndrome): what is it?
Gourmand syndrome is a rather mysterious entity - it has only occurred in a few dozen people so far. The problem is related to the emergence of specific food preferences in patients. Although it is...
Excess sugar in the diet increases the risk of mood disorders?
Carbohydrates - consumed in excess - can lead to excess weight, and they can also promote dental disease. It is possible that excess sugar promotes not only organic conditions, but also mental...
Mental illness in a parent and risk of illness in an offspring
Parents with mental health problems may often wonder whether their children will also develop similar problems. On the basis of currently available research, it can be concluded that indeed -...
Mental disorders as a side effect of pharmacotherapy
There are many potential causes of mental disorders, including the role of genes or environmental conditions in their pathogenesis. However, problems such as hallucinations, lowered or elevated mood...
Prepsychotic state, or how to detect the illness before it fully develops?
The prepsychotic state is not always easy to catch. However, it is an important issue because it is believed that the earlier treatment of psychotic disorders is undertaken, the better the prognosis...
Electroshock therapy: should we really be afraid of it?
In many films, we can come across scenes where a person undergoing electroshock therapy is convulsing. Not surprisingly, electroshock is generally associated as a drastic method and one that is...
Mental health co-morbidity: one patient, many problems
Just as a patient with diabetes may have heart or liver failure at the same time, a person with depression may also suffer from other mental illnesses or disorders - a condition known as comorbidity....
Anorexia and bulimia: when one problem turns into another
Anorexia and bulimia are the most well-known eating disorders. They are now distinguished as separate disease entities, however, this has not always been the case - the reason for this has probably...
Imaging examinations in psychiatry
In psychiatry, diagnoses are mainly made on the basis of a psychiatric examination, i.e. a targeted interview with the patient. Various procedures, such as the determination of thyroid hormone...
Child psychopathology - what should worry a parent?
Ordinary sadness or something more serious? Are children's stories a manifestation of a rich imagination or an insidiously developing illness? Parents are the ones who pay the most attention to their...
What personality disorders predispose to so-called dissociative disorders?
Dissociative disorders are called transient or fixed states in which there is a disconnection of functions that are normally integrated, namely consciousness, memory, identity or perception. The...
Suicide and presuicidal syndrome
All too often tragedy strikes. Too often a person, racked by different emotions and for different reasons, raises his hand against his own life. It is always a tragedy. And all the more so because a...
