Medical conditions and mental health symptoms

Please follow APA format, add citations and references from the articles. Document will be verified for plagiarism and AI use. Thank you! 

Please read the instructions. Although I may be interested in your opinions and personal experiences outside of the class; however, for the sake of this class, I am not. Your postings should not express agreement, absolutes, opinion, or place a value on your peers comments. I asks that you simply expand from the scientific literature based on the postings.

 

Postings should not appear like journalism, chats, or social media. 

Topic: Medical conditions and mental health symptoms

Often medical conditions appear to psychiatric in nature. From the peer-reviewed literature, please provide common and uncommon medical conditions that appear to be psychiatric in nature or are a sequela of a psychiatric condition.  Please elaborate on tests and procedures that you may encounter or prescribe to rule in or rule out such conditions. Do not repeat conditions already presented by your peers. Do not present hypothyroidism. Do not re-use their references and articles. 

You must search and cite two original peer-reviewed articles from the literature as your original discussion post (about 250 words). You will then offer two brief (100 words) responses to your peers with at least one original peer-reviewed article.

The rubric. 

2 points  not gained for incorrect or improper APA 

2 points  not gained for failure to post initial discussion 

1 points  not gained for failing to hand in a discussion response

Please provide a peer response from each discussion posts you can find below. 100 words each with at least one original peer-reviewed article.

Discussion 1

Medical conditions can closely resemble primary psychiatric disorders, making a comprehensive medical evaluation essential before diagnosing a psychiatric illness. While psychosis, mania, anxiety, and cognitive changes are often attributed to mental illness, they may instead reflect an underlying neurological or systemic disease. One important example is autoimmune encephalitis, particularly anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis, which frequently presents with acute psychosis, mood instability, agitation, hallucinations, or catatonia before neurological symptoms become apparent. Rather than viewing these symptoms in isolation, clinicians should recognize patterns such as rapid symptom onset, fluctuating mental status, seizures, autonomic instability, or poor response to antipsychotic medications, as these findings increase suspicion for an autoimmune process (Herken & Prüss, 2017). Diagnostic evaluation should include magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), electroencephalography (EEG), cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) analysis obtained through lumbar puncture, and serum or CSF neuronal antibody testing to confirm the diagnosis while excluding infectious or structural etiologies (Herken & Prüss, 2017).

   Another medical disorder that may initially appear psychiatric is Wilson disease, a rare inherited disorder of copper metabolism that commonly affects adolescents and young adults. Patients may present with depression, personality changes, irritability, psychosis, anxiety, or cognitive impairment before developing more recognizable hepatic or neurological manifestations. Because psychiatric symptoms may precede other clinical findings, relying solely on behavioral presentation can delay diagnosis and treatment. Instead, clinicians should integrate psychiatric assessment with targeted laboratory and diagnostic testing, including liver function tests, serum ceruloplasmin, serum copper, 24-hour urinary copper excretion, slit-lamp examination for Kayser-Fleischer rings, and brain MRI when neurological symptoms are suspected (Martínez-Morillo et al., 2022). Synthesizing psychiatric findings with a thorough medical workup allows PMHNPs to identify reversible medical disorders, initiate appropriate referrals, and avoid misdiagnosis, ultimately improving patient outcomes through earlier recognition of treatable conditions.

 

References

Herken, J., & Prüss, H. (2017). Red flags: Clinical signs for identifying autoimmune encephalitis in psychiatric patients.  Frontiers in Psychiatry, 8, 25.  https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2017.00025Links to an external site.

Martínez-Morillo, E., García-García, M., & Barcia, J. A. (2022). Biochemical diagnosis of Wilson’s disease: An update.  Advances in Laboratory Medicine, 3(4), 320–331.  https://doi.org/10.1515/almed-2022-0063Links to an external site.

Discussion 2

Medical causes should remain part of psychiatric assessment when symptoms are acute, non-responsive to treatment, fluctuating, or seen with drastic changes with altered mental status. One common condition is vitamin B12 deficiency. Psychiatric presentations include depression, irritability, brain fog, paranoia, hallucinations, or mood symptoms, and these can occur even when anemia is absent (Lindenbaum et al., 1988). This is important because a patient can be misdiagnosed with a mood, psychotic, or neurocognitive disorder if the medical evaluation relies only on a CBC lab. Screening may include complete blood count, serum vitamin B12, and assessment for causes such as pernicious anemia, poor diet, gastric surgery, or medication adverse effects.

A less common condition is anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis. This autoimmune encephalitis can resemble psychosis, mania, catatonia, anxiety, dyskinesias, autonomic instability, or altered mental status (Dalmau et al., 2008). Psychiatric providers should consider this diagnosis when acute psychiatric symptoms occur with rapid progression, abnormal movements, seizures, rapid changes in mental status, or fever. Evaluation may require immediate medical assessment, neurological exam, diagnostic imaging, electroencephalography, cerebrospinal fluid studies, and cerebrospinal fluid anti-NMDA receptor antibody testing. Since some cases are associated with an ovarian cyst, pelvic imaging can also be indicated. These show why psychiatric diagnosis should have medical rule outs when the symptoms do not fit the typical expectation of a psychiatric illness.

References

Dalmau, J., Gleichman, A. J., Hughes, E. G., Rossi, J. E., Peng, X., Lai, M., Dessain, S. K., Rosenfeld, M. R., Balice-Gordon, R., & Lynch, D. R. (2008). Anti-NMDA-receptor encephalitis: Case series and analysis of the effects of antibodies.  The Lancet Neurology, 7(12), 1091–1098.  https://doi.org/10.1016/S1474-4422(08)70224-2Links to an external site.

Lindenbaum, J., Healton, E. B., Savage, D. G., Brust, J. C. M., Garrett, T. J., Podell, E. R., Marcell, P. D., Stabler, S. P., & Allen, R. H. (1988). Neuropsychiatric disorders caused by cobalamin deficiency in the absence of anemia or macrocytosis.  The New England Journal of Medicine, 318(26), 1720–1728.  https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJM198806303182604Links to an external site.