Arab Board Psychiatry Final Written key terms

An acute, fluctuating disturbance of attention and awareness, usually with altered sleep-wake cycle and cognition, caused by an underlying medical or toxic condition rather than a primary psychiatric illness.

A chronic, progressive decline in two or more cognitive domains severe enough to impair daily functioning, in the absence of clouded consciousness, most often due to neurodegenerative disease.

A rare, life-threatening reaction to dopamine-blocking drugs marked by severe rigidity, hyperthermia, autonomic instability, and raised creatine kinase, requiring immediate drug withdrawal and supportive care.

A potentially fatal toxic state from serotonergic excess, presenting with agitation, clonus, hyperreflexia, tremor, fever and autonomic overactivity, often after combining serotonergic agents.

Drug-induced movement disturbances from dopamine blockade, including parkinsonism, acute dystonia, akathisia and tardive dyskinesia, which differ in timing and management.

A late-onset, often persistent involuntary movement disorder of the face, mouth, tongue or limbs, arising after months to years of dopamine-blocking antipsychotic treatment.

The time required for the plasma concentration of a drug to fall by half, determining dosing interval, time to steady state, and how quickly a drug washes out after stopping.

Measurement of plasma drug levels to guide dosing, most useful for drugs with a narrow therapeutic index, poor correlation between dose and response, and serious toxicity, such as lithium and clozapine.

The condition in which drug intake equals elimination so plasma levels remain stable, generally reached after about four to five half-lives of regular dosing.

Changes in drug metabolism when one agent inhibits or induces hepatic enzyme pathways, raising or lowering levels of co-prescribed drugs and risking toxicity or loss of effect.

Disturbed structure or flow of thinking inferred from speech, with features such as loosening of associations, derailment, neologisms and incoherence, classically prominent in schizophrenia.

A group of psychotic phenomena considered especially characteristic of schizophrenia, including audible thoughts, voices arguing or commenting, thought insertion, withdrawal or broadcast, and made feelings, impulses or acts.

The experience that one's thoughts, feelings, impulses or bodily actions are controlled or imposed by an external agency, a hallmark of psychotic loss of self-boundary.

Rapid, continuous speech with abrupt shifts between ideas linked by loose associations, rhyme or distraction, typically seen in mania rather than in schizophrenia.

Speech that is rapid, voluminous and difficult to interrupt, driven by an internal sense of urgency, characteristic of manic episodes.

A structured clinical description of a patient's current psychological functioning, covering appearance, behaviour, speech, mood and affect, thought, perception, cognition and insight.

A patient's awareness of having an illness, of its nature and cause, and of the need for treatment, judged during the mental state examination and relevant to consent and adherence.

A brief, scored bedside cognitive screen assessing orientation, memory, attention, language and visuospatial function, used to detect and track cognitive impairment.

A person's ability to make a specific decision at a specific time, judged by understanding, retaining, weighing and communicating information, distinct from the clinical concept of insight.

Detention and treatment of a person in hospital without consent, permitted under mental health law only when mental disorder, risk to self or others, and necessity criteria are met with safeguards.

The professional duty to keep patient information private, subject to lawful exceptions such as risk of serious harm to others, court orders, or statutory reporting requirements.

A defendant's present ability to understand the charges and proceedings and to instruct counsel, assessed separately from criminal responsibility at the time of the alleged offence.

The legal determination of whether a defendant's mental disorder at the time of an act removed the capacity to know the nature or wrongfulness of the act, excusing culpability.

The intentional production or exaggeration of symptoms for an external goal such as compensation, avoiding duty or obtaining drugs, distinguished from factitious disorder and genuine illness.

The intentional feigning or induction of symptoms to assume the sick role, without external reward, in contrast to malingering which is driven by identifiable gain.

A trauma-related disorder with intrusive re-experiencing, avoidance, negative mood and cognition, and hyperarousal persisting beyond a month after exposure to a traumatic event.

Trauma-related symptoms similar to PTSD but occurring within the first month after the event, often including dissociation, and resolving or evolving into PTSD.

Disruption of normally integrated consciousness, memory, identity or perception, ranging from depersonalisation and derealisation to amnesia and identity fragmentation.

A recurrent, persistent and intrusive thought, urge or image that the person experiences as unwanted and attempts to ignore or neutralise, causing marked distress.

A repetitive behaviour or mental act performed in response to an obsession or rigid rule, aimed at reducing distress or preventing a feared outcome, and not realistically connected to it.

Distressing bodily symptoms that are disproportionate to any medical finding and accompanied by excessive thoughts, anxiety or time devoted to them, causing significant impairment.

Persistent preoccupation with having or acquiring a serious illness with few or no somatic symptoms, high health anxiety, and repeated checking or avoidance of care.

An eating disorder with restriction of intake relative to needs, significantly low body weight, intense fear of weight gain, and disturbed body image, often with medical complications.

A dangerous shift of electrolytes, especially hypophosphataemia, occurring when nutrition is reintroduced too rapidly in a malnourished patient, risking cardiac and neurological collapse.

A neurodevelopmental disorder of persistent inattention and/or hyperactivity and impulsivity, beginning before age twelve and impairing functioning across settings.

A neurodevelopmental condition defined by persistent deficits in social communication and interaction plus restricted, repetitive behaviours and interests, with onset in early development.

A repetitive and persistent pattern of behaviour violating the rights of others or major age-appropriate norms, including aggression, destruction, deceit and serious rule-breaking.

A structured, time-limited psychological treatment that targets unhelpful thoughts and behaviours maintaining distress, using collaborative empiricism and behavioural experiments.

The patient's redirection onto the therapist of feelings, expectations and patterns originally attached to important early figures, used as therapeutic material in psychodynamic work.

The clinician's emotional reactions to a patient that arise from the clinician's own unresolved conflicts and are evoked by the patient's transference.

A collaborative, directive counselling style that strengthens a person's own motivation for change by exploring and resolving ambivalence, commonly used in substance misuse.

A pragmatic approach that aims to reduce the adverse consequences of substance use or other risky behaviour without requiring abstinence as a precondition for help.

A severe alcohol withdrawal state with confusion, hallucinations, tremor and autonomic hyperactivity, carrying significant mortality and requiring benzodiazepines and medical support.

A thiamine deficiency syndrome of acute confusion, ataxia and ophthalmoplegia, a medical emergency that can progress to Korsakoff amnesia if untreated.

The need for increasing amounts of a substance to achieve the same effect, or reduced effect from the same dose, developing through repeated use.

A substance-specific syndrome of distressing symptoms and signs that follows reduction or cessation of heavy and prolonged use of a substance.

A cluster of cognitive, behavioural and physiological features indicating loss of control over substance use, including strong desire, difficulty cutting down, and continued use despite harm.

The proportion of variation in a trait within a population attributable to genetic differences, estimated from twin and family studies and not a fixed property of an individual.

A measurable, heritable trait that lies between genes and a clinical disorder, such as a cognitive or neurophysiological marker, used to study genetic mechanisms.

A chemical messenger released at synapses that carries signals between neurons, such as dopamine, serotonin, noradrenaline, glutamate and GABA, and a key target of psychotropic drugs.