The DSM-5 has changed the term “mental retardation” and replaced it with “intellectual disability”. This was done for several reasons, one of the main was to decrease the stigma associated with the use of the former term. There are several levels of intellectual disability severity: mild, moderate, severe and profound. By Dr. Terra Caudill, MD, […]
This job was so big that it took 2 printing companies to get it done. 150,000 copies of the softcover book. 31,000 copies of the hardcover book. 50,000 copies of the Desk Reference (the mini version). It took 11-and-a-half truckloads of paper from the mill weighing over 12,000 pounds. And then they still needed 5,000 pounds […]
The DSM-IV had included the diagnosis of “Coffee Intoxication”. A funny sounding term, but if you’ve ever had too much coffee, you know know what it is… Runnin’ around, talking really fast, feeling jittery, upset stomach, maybe even some diarrhea. The DSM-5 has added the inverse “Caffeine Withdrawal” to our list of diagnoses. Another odd […]
The DSM-5 has combined the former “Substance Abuse” and “Substance Dependence” disorders into one new “Substance Use” disorder with mild, moderate, and severe modifiers. The former Substance Dependence disorder implied “addiction” such as having tolerance buildup (needing to use more over time) or withdrawal symptoms (when not using). However, this is not the case for […]
The DSM-5 has created a new single diagnosis of “Autism Spectrum Disorder” that includes the former Autism and Asperger’s diagnoses with indicators of the severity of symptoms. This was done because it was difficult to accurately diagnose disorders which really are minor/major variations of one disorder. Hopefully, this will allow physicians to use a diagnosis that […]
The DSM-5 has changed the term “Dementia” to “Neurocognitive Disorders”. This change was made to help decrease the negative connotation of this term, as well as the fact that most people really didn’t know what the term meant. Neurocognitive Disorders will now include Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, HIV infection, Lewy body disease, vascular disease, and […]