Diagnosing Mental Disorder

Diagnosing mental disorder in adults requires the help of an experienced psychiatrist in conjunction with other health professionals after observing symptoms of various individuals. The medical history of an individual taken into account as well as the recent life activities done by the patient. It is upon the friends, and family members can play a role by indicating the kind of behavior they have observed from an individual. Diagnosis of mental illness in adults may also involve physical examination where an individual is checked to rule any physical disease that could have been caused by mental illness (Volkert et al., 2013). Physical examination also helps to determine if the physical condition could have caused the change of behavior.

Diagnosing mental disorders in young people is different from diagnosing old people. Although people at all ages face stress in life the level in which they manifest is different to young and old people. Mature adults may get mental health illness as a result of reduced functional ability which is different from the young people. Young people are not likely to understand mental illness as a result of functional disability, for example, having chronic pain and reduced mobility(Lever &Geurtis, 2016). Old people also get the mental illness as a result of a change in social-economic status which makes them feel lonely and faces isolation which may cause mental illness.

Another issue is that diagnosing mental illness as a result of physical illness is different in young and adult people. Mental illness has an impact on physical disease in both young and old people. For example, old people with heart problems are likely to suffer mental illness compared to those who are healthy. If an old person with heart disease does not get treated with depression, then the effect may be worse than if an individual was healthy. The symptoms that old and young people show is different since young people show reduced performance and loss of self-esteem. Old people experience dementia, and this results in the deterioration of thinking, behavior, and memory and the reduction of energy to do daily activities. The practice is typical to the aging people although it is not normal behavior (Lever &Geurtis, 2016). On the contrary, young people tend to become active and may not lose any memory.

In conclusions, diagnosing mental illness should be given more emphasis. It should be upon the psychiatrist to determine the right diagnosis for the young and the old people. Diagnosing mental disorder should involve family members and relatives since they can quickly identify any change of behavior.

 

References

Lever, A. G., &Geurts, H. M. (2016). Psychiatric co-occurring symptoms and disorders in young, middle-aged, and older adults with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders46(6), 1916-1930.

Volkert, J., Schulz, H., Härter, M., Wlodarczyk, O., & Andreas, S. (2013). The prevalence of mental disorders in older people in Western countries–a meta-analysis. Ageing research reviews12(1), 339-353.

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