Psychological disorders-choosing a diagnosis

LV, given the brevity of both the case description, and your allowed length, what I think you are being asked to do is a differential diagnosis.

I don't like wiki, and this page comes with banner warning that it needs work. Nevertheless, it illustrates the idea, and the term is searchable (or even "differential diagnosis" anxiety).

psychology.wikia.com...

I could be wrong, of course. Good luck.

Originally posted by LeoVirgo
In all honesty, the more and more I ponder on this...the more I think this assignment just sucks.

I will do it..but I dont like it at all. I have had to write many papers...and none of them have been this vague.
.

Hiya, i think its vauge on purpose. part of the assignment to fill in all the gaps ...geech dont you watch "House"

what ever condition or illness it is you choose you will be right in context with the assignement and i think its

more about how you can arrive at your diagnosis than diagnosis itself. could be anxiety, depression, bipolar,

fibromyalga, throyide problem, yest infection, etc.

allthough you are not given too many facts on paper about this client, there are more to be deduced from the facts

given.



Facts we know:
Hispanic
Female
Age 42
Accountant
sleeping trouble
frequent visits to the medical clinic
Feeling of jitter
trouble focusing "at work"

Gaps we can fill deduced from the above after watching several episodes of Dr House:

Hispanic: are there any thing stats wise you know about hispanic ( is that spanish?) are more dispositioned to:

such as dietry trends, general lifestyle deductions - and im not being racist before anyone flames. also any stats

you know of on genes in "hispanics" ???? i dont know.

Female: and age 42: could be hormonal condition caused by some female thing i dont know anything about.

Age 42: Most psychological adhd, bi-polar, depressive, type problems would become apparent earlyier on in life.

dont they say early 20's is common. and to 30's (difference in men and women) thats when things surface usually .

so why is she only getting this now. maybe its not a "chemical problem" she is dispositioned to. could it be alien

factors.. sorry. i mean External factors . Diet, lifestyle, work pressure. marrage problem that have created the

unbalance. possible substance abuse? Well that dont add up to the type of person. substance abuse more like mid

20's type thing. cos being an accountant they are not wired up that way. Also women are more sensible arnt they

than men, and female accountant, age 42, well thats a fairly reasonable combination of sensible-ness at a time in

life when most have become more sensible


Accountant: typicall accountant type would be quite a studious person and pays good attention to detail. has Bunch

of certificates and reasonable qualified for job, this kind of person Like things to add up both sides of the

balance sheet must stack up and wont like to leave it unresolved. so we can say this carrys into personal life

behaviours, like making groceries lists, paying bills on time, keeping car taxed and serviced..etc. and hence

personal health

this kind of person may not like things to be out of balance, so i think this leads us to how long she has been

suffering with this condition. it wont be like she has been suffering with this for years and has been told to

live with it or has just accepted to live with it as these symptoms are the our of balance like a glaring amount

on company balance sheet.

Work enviroment we can deduce: Workplace probably office enviroment, sits a desk all day with computer, TFT

screens, Fluro lighting, Photopopier and plenty of electromagnetic radiations. Probably typical office chairs

nothing too fancy ergo chair like you would find in Architechts office thats good for posture. probalbly worked

as accountant for a good number of years so developed the classic posture so also we could deduce shallow breather

than say other person who works standing all day in a department store. Sits all; day infront of PC and under

fluro tubes.
....................cont

Originally posted by LeoVirgo
Hi all!

Any feedback will help me think more about this...so please add thoughts.

LV

Frequent visits to the medical clinic: this also fits in with above, as a person with "newer" sysmptoms is more

likely to make frequent visits to Dr as the condition is not her usual self and become most apparent in her day to

day. like if you get a stone in your shoe you notice it and want to take the shoe off to fix it. frequent visits

sounds like she knows she is out of balance so to speak andwants to get back to normal. and wants to get to the

bottom of it. so wont settle untill she discovers where the problem is. else if a long standing problem then she

would maybe have reqular visits to medical, but it would not be frequent like out of the ordinary. it suggests to

me if its something like anxiety symptoms, then this symptoms may have been manefesting for a fairly short period

of time like 6 months or so. maybe a lot less 3-4 months.

so does not sound like a ADHD , as that would have been apparent longer in life i would of thought.
the kind of profession accounting is not really that higher energy creative mind type - if she was work in arts

and design then ADHD more probable. But im really not talking from much study here, but give clue how to look at

this in different light.

sleeping troubles: can assume then normally she sleeps allright or otherwise would not report havving troubles

unless poked and prodded for it. Again accountant type more likely they type of person to get up on time go to bed

on time. also being woman 42 if have kids then more likely to be the one to get them up to school.

Feeling of jitter:
this could be anxiety and nerviousness. could also be related to sugar intake. she may have started to eat more

sugar foods than usual for emotional comfort type thing. this would ramp up the sugal levels and cause jittering

feelings as I get this all the time myself. This could then relate to sleeping issue. this would affect

concentration levels and ability to focus.


trouble focusing "at work": sounds like a new problem, as generally accountants are pretty good at focusing ,.

thats why they get the job, they can still focus on things others would find too boring. so this could be a bit of

info here thats pertaining to the problem?? Did not say trouble focusing while at home cooking, or cant focus

while shopping. normally shes pretty good at focusing at work. and focusing at work is important to her, so it

cant of been bothering her that long , so maybe the shorter time of 3-4mths realistic or shorter. it takes a

months or so to get like it in the first place, and a little while to notice it and a little while to really anoy

you to have to frequent the medical clinic at the point where you know its a problem


so anyway theres allsorts of thing we can reasonably deduce from the limited info you have, without extrapolating

the data too far. [ site note: sorry more spelling mistake , but fed up of apoligising every time in fear of being

flamed, so will just make spelling error and typo and be done with it. if dont like it dont read it and dont waste

breath to flame me, just become a school teacher. end side note]

peace it all together and becomes a much better picture of the person and possible contributing factors to the

symptoms and then can strike out certain conditions just through stastistical analysis.


hope this helps

Originally posted by LeoVirgo




I have to make a profile of a female, age 42, Hispanic woman, who works as an accountant. The only info I am given is that she keeps showing up to the medical clinic with trouble sleeping, feelings of 'jitter', and trouble focusing her attention at work. This was the only info I was given to go by.

Just to mix it up a little .....

Perhaps a "Culture bound Syndrome"

Susto / miedo / espanto .

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`jitters`
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