What is DSM?
mental illness is more at the forefront of society than it was. With this increased visibility, people began to look at psychiatric references as a vital reading, especially if they have a family member who is mentally ill. One of the first books that many people read are DSM - a diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. This is an official reference book for psychiatrists, psychologists, mental health advisor and therapists.
DSM categorizes and describes mental illnesses; represents diagnostic criteria, treatment options and prognosis; and details of research results. It is in the office of almost every career of mental health care. DSM divides mental illness into five axes.
The axis also covers clinical syndromes such as depression schizophrenia and. OSA II includes developmental and personality disorders such as autism, mental retardation, paranoia and antisocial personality disorders. Axis III deals with physical conditions such as patient suffering from reduced function due to damageThe brain. Axis IV deals with the severity of psychosocial stressors and Axis V helps determine the highest level of functioning of the patient. The mental health professional consults DSM to determine whether the patient's functioning has decreased or has since been measured.
DSM helps an expert in mental health in the diagnosis of mental diseases. It provides a list of symptoms for any given disorder and tells the medical expert how many symptoms must be present in order to diagnose the condition. Even those who are not advisors or psychiatrist can consider DSM useful. For example, a physical, speech or music therapist could consult with DSM to learn the patient diagnosis symptoms and can be able to adapt therapy to better benefit the patient. If a physiotherapist consults DSM and detects the heating of medicines that affects balance or movement, may want to focus on theseareas to help improve the patient's function. The latest edition of the work is DSM-IV. The next DSM edition is expected to be released in 2011.