Psychiatric Nursing

• Illusion

  • misperception of an actual external stimuli
• Hallucination

  • false sensory perception in the absence of external stimuli
• Neologism

  • pathological coining of new words
• Circumstantiality

  • over inclusion of details
• Word Salad

  • incoherent mixture of words and phrases
• Flights of Ideas

  • shifting of one topic from one subject to another in a completely unrelated way
• Looseness of Association

  • shifting of a topic from one subject to another in somewhat related way
• Verbigeration

  • meaningless repetition of words or phrases
• Perseveration

  • persistence of a response to a previous question
• Echolalia

  • pathological repetition of words of others
• Clang Association

  • the sound of the word gives direction to the flow of thought
• Delusion

  • false belief which is inconsistent with one’s knowledge and culture
• Grandeur

  • an exagerrated belief of identity
• Nihilistic

  • the client denies the existence of self or part of self
• Persecution

  • belief that he or she is the object of an environmental attention and being singled out for harassment
• Self-depreciation

  • worthlessness or hopelessness
• Somatic

  • false belief to body function
• Inappropriate affect

  • disharmony between the stimuli and the emotional reaction
• Blunted affect

  • severe reduction in emotional reaction
• Flat affect

  • absence or near absence of emotional reaction
• Apathy

  • dulled emotional tone
• Echopraxia

  • the pathological imitation of posture/action of others
• Waxy flexibility

  • maintaining the desired position for long periods of time without discomfort
• Akinesia

  • loss of movement
• Bradykinesia

  • slowness of all voluntary movement including speech.
• Ataxia

  • loss of coordinated movement
• Disturbances in Memory

  1. Confabulation
  2. Amnesia
  3. Deja Vu
  4. Jamais Vu
  5. Dementia
• Confabulation

  • filling in of memory gaps
• Amnesia

  • inability to recall past events
• Anterograde

  • immediate past
• Retrograde

  • distant past
• Deja vu

  • feeling of having been to place which one has not yet visited
• Jamais vu

  • feeling of not having been to a place which one has visited
• Dementia

  • gradual deterioration of intellectual functioning

  • results in the decreased of capacity to perform ADL
• Agitation

  • severe anxiety associated with motor restlessness.
• Agnosia

  • inability to recognize and interpret sensory stimuli.
• Akathisia

  • subjective feeling of muscular tension, restlessness and pacing repeated sitting and

  standing.
• Ambivalence

  • presence of two opposing feelings at the same time.
• Aphasia

  • inability or difficulty to speak or recall words
• Apraxia

  • inability to carry out specific task or activity.