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Chapter 3 of the book "Pediatric Rehabilitation: Principles and Practice," Fourth Edition, edited by Michael A. Alexander and Dennis J. Matthews is presented. It discusses the goal of rehabilitation in children with disabilities. It emphasizes the difference between psychiatric disturbance and adjustment problems. It explores the essence psychological assessment in pediatric rehabilitation.

The impact of culture and ethnicity on the diagnosis and treatment of patients with mental disorders has been of growing interest and concern to professionals in the United States and also in Germany. This contribution intends to give an overview of key aspects regarding competence in intercultural situations using research and clinical experiences from the United States and from Germany. The issue of racism and discrimination as contributing factors in the development of mental disorders will be critically examined from a US and a German perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following discussion has been developed to facilitate an historical perspective for future work in defining the boundaries and characteristics of psychopathology. The chapter begins with an historical overview of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) classification systems that started with efforts to collect statistics about the population at large (i.e. U.S. Census), which would be consistent with statistics on the diagnostic composition of patients in mental hospitals. Next, there is a review of the history of international collaboration that has allowed for the ongoing coordination efforts to develop classification systems by both the APA and the international scientific community. After a review of the strengths and limitations of the DSM-IV, the chapter concludes with a look ahead to future efforts to improve the validity and clinical utility of diagnostic criteria for psychopathology, and the arrangement of such diagnoses into a system of classification. The roots of the fifth-edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-V) developmental process are described as options for future efforts to ensure continued collaboration between U.S. and international developers of the DSM and ICD systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The main approaches to the classification of mental disorders put forward by GPs are described, and contrasted with those suggested by psychiatrists, and adapted to the conditions of primary care. Some differences exist between the kinds of disorder seen in the two settings, especially the comorbidity with physical illness in primary care. Classifications should be derived from existing nosologies by a process of condensation and simplification, although the psychiatrist's concept of "somatoform disorder" is a far cry from the GP's necessary concept of "unexplained somatic symptoms". Special problems of classification at each end of the life cycle are described, and the importance of assessing the disability associated with mental disorders. The form and structure of common mental disorders in primary care does not vary widely across countries or cultures, although inevitably there are local variations in prevalence. The sheer size of the problem in primary care necessitates special training not just for medical officers but also for all other primary care staff. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Contemporary psychopathology, with its epistemological roots in the logical positivism, is mainly guided by reliability concerns. Consciousness or subjectivity is phobically avoided on the theoretical level and dramatically downplayed on the pragmatic level, with seriously deleterious consequences for diagnosis and research. Yet, a typology of subjective experience will remain an intrinsic aspect of any coherent psychiatric taxonomy. We review the available descriptive approaches: contemporary operational psychopathology, Jaspers' descriptive method and the so-called "continental" phenomenology. The latter does not consider subjectivity as a physical/spatial object but as a medium allowing the world to manifest itself; it aims at grasping essential structural/formal features of experience and existence and has developed suitable methodologies for this task. We introduce these methodologies through a condensed presentation of the fundamental features of consciousness: experiential awareness and self-awareness, time-consciousness, intentionality (object-directedness), embodiment, and intersubjectivity. We argue that phenomenology is acutely relevant for a much-needed renaissance of psychopathology. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Psychiatric diagnosis and classification is an important part of psychiatric practice. The experiences from developing countries have contributed to a better understanding of mental disorders. The observation of universal nature of mental disorders with national variations in presentation emphasises the need for national adaptation of international classification systems. The review presents research on psychiatric classification from countries of Asia, Africa and South America. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This chapter reviews the conceptual bases of multiaxial and comprehensive diagnosis, followed by a discussion of the early use of multiaxial diagnosis in psychiatry and general medicine. Then, the multiaxial schemes in current diagnostic systems, such as ICD-10 and DSM-IV, are examined along with the value and limitations of their use. Finally, recent developments and prospects, such as the WPA International Guidelines for Diagnostic Assessment, are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Approximately 23 million Americans will suffer from an anxiety disorder some time during their life. Anxiety disorders are the most common mental disorders in the United States, the fifth most common diagnosis given to those seen by primary care physicians, and the number one psychiatric diagnosis made by primary-care physicians. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This chapter discusses issues concerning psychiatric diagnostic systems. Among the writers on transcultural psychiatry, there are many who would wish to place the Western psychiatric diagnostic system at the same level as alternative lay or folk categorisation systems in other cultures. It has to be admitted that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental disorders is a cultural product in that it is derived from Western psychiatric practice and Western ideas and traditions of epistemology and science. In psychiatry, in most cases, there is no detectable underlying physiological disorder. There are only names of syndromes and statistical prognoses, plus some pragmatic treatments. This has two consequences: (1) Diagnosis in psychiatry is more akin to naming them than to explanation and (2) Conflation of diagnosis with psychotherapeutic formulations. Meanwhile, before the labelling and diagnosis issue can be left behind, one final argument requires consideration. On some occasions when diagnoses are being criticised as labels, it is not labelling theory which is being invoked at all, but the process of depersonalisation through diagnosis. The subject of boundaries in psychiatric diagnostic systems can be separated into three different questions: (1) Boundaries and overlap between the different diagnostic categories, (2) Boundary between what is or is not a psychiatric case and (3) Boundary between what is or is not a psychiatric case.

Discusses some of the lessons for diagnostics that can be derived from the Present State Examination (PSE) program of the Social Psychiatry Unit of the Medical Research Council. Development of the PSE; Interpretation of PSE items; Co-morbidity between so-called organic and so-called functional disorders.

The article focuses on psychogeriatric rating scales designed for nurses and other health workers. In this paper, because the author cannot give a comprehensive account of the wide variety of instruments that are available for the assessment of the elderly mentally ill, Attention has been given to those instruments that have been relatively well validated.

The article provides information about Minor Cognitive Impairment. In older people memory impairment is usually found to be followed by deficits in other areas of cognitive performance, an alternative concept, ageing-associated cognitive decline. There have been evidenced that elderly person with minor cognitive disorder may be at high risk of developing senile dementia which has led to the development of the concept of mild cognitive impairment.

The article offers information related to the Cambridge Examination for Mental Disorders of the Elderly (CAMDEX). The diagnostic tool was devised to assist clinicians and epidemiologists in diagnosing mild dementia in particular, as reliably as possible. CAMDEX addresses all elements of current diagnostic criteria, incorporates historical material so that persons with cognitive deficits due to intellectual disability, sensory handicap or functional mental disorder are classified correctly.

Presents the table of contents to the January 1, 2002 issue of the journal "Psychiatric Diagnosis and Classification."

The article discusses the current research diagnostic criteria for psychiatric illness. In the studies conducted with dementia, it had adopted the hierarchical approach to the diagnosis wherein the probability of a diagnostic subtype of dementia is specified in a subject. Findings shows that, subjects who fulfill in clinical diagnostic criteria for a probable disease are considered to have purer form of the disease as compare to those fulfilling the possible diagnostic category.