Dissociative Fugue

A person in a Dissociative Fugue adopts a new identity after leaving their previous living arrangements and forgetting or being confused about their previous identity. They are able to perform well enough to survive under the new identity. These episodes are generally are caused by a severe stressor and are time limited to a few days, but may last up to months. When the fugue ends, the person is unable to recall what occurred during this state.

Dissociative Amnesia

In Dissociative Amnesia, the person is unable to remember personal information. They are aware that they have forgotten information, but do not know what they have forgotten. While they are able to perform simple tasks, they usually are unable to perform more complex ones such as shopping and cooking, instead wandering aimlessly. This type of amnesia usually lasts for a period of hours to days follows a severe stressor, and may be selective for a traumatic event.

Depression

Major Depression affects 15% of Americans at some point during their lives, and 100 million people are affected on any given day. The age of onset is fairly evenly spread among people. The mean age is 40, but Depression can onset from childhood to seniors. It can come on suddenly in days, or build over years. Anxiety, phobias, panic and Dysthymia can predate it. On average, the course of Major Depression runs 3 to 9 months if untreated, and 85% cases resolve within 1 year. Over 1/2 of people who experience major depression only have one episode. With each successive episode, the patient has a 15% risk that their next episode will be a manic episode, changing their diagnosis to Bipolar Disorder. In the end, approximately 15-20% of those with major depression become chronically depressed. Approximately 15% of patients with major depression may commit suicide, as well, with men committing suicide at a rate 2 times as often as women.

Depersonalization Disorder

Depersonalization Disorder is where a person "looks at themselves from the outside", and observes their own physical actions or mental processes as if they were an observer instead of themselves. This often brings a sense of unreality, and an alteration in the perception of the environment around them, as well as the person fearing they are not in full control of themselves. Depersonalization can occur during a number of different times, and not be a disorder. In order to qualify as a disorder, it must be recurrent to the point that it interferes with daily functioning in at least one major area of life.

Dependent Personality Disorder

Dependent Personality Disorder is manifested via passively allowing others to assume responsibility for major areas of ones life due to lack of self-confidence or lack of ability to function independently. This leads to the person making their own needs secondary to the needs of others, and then becoming dependent on them. While everyone is dependent on others for some parts of their lives, those with dependent personality disorder are dependent on almost all major areas of their lives, and view themselves poorly, and good only as extensions of others.

Dementia an overveiw

Dementia is categorized as being caused by four subtypes: Alzheimer's disease (the most common subtype, accounting for 50% of dementias); Vascular reasons (such as a stroke or hypertension, accounting for 9-15% of dementias); Substance abuse persisting dementias (accounting for 7-9% of dementias, with alcohol the major cause of most of these; and General medical conditions such as Parkinson's disease, Huntington disease, and other neurological illnesses (accounting for 20-30%). Psuedodementia can also be caused by other mental illnesses such as Major Depressive Disorder and Psychosis. Regardless of the cause, the dementias all have common factors. Initially in dementia, there is memory loss for recent events such as stoves being left on, keys being misplaced, conversations forgotten. Later, people begin to get lost while driving roads that they once knew very well, and questions must be repeated because the questions and answers are quickly forgotten. The long-ago memories are retained and dwelled upon. Personality changes occur, and the person may manifest changes that are the complete opposite from their previous personality. Poor judgment and impulse control often go hand-in-hand. They may speak crudely, make lewd gestures and display their genitals.

Delusional Disorder

There is not a single type of Delusional Disorder. There are a number of subtypes, but they share a major common feature. This is that the person has a nonbizzare delusion - a delusion that could occur in real life, that is. For example, a person that feels they are being followed or poisoned is nonbizarre, while a person who feels their parents are from mars is bizarre. The subtypes are erotomanic, in which the person believes that a person of usually higher status is in love with them; grandiose, which is delusions of inflated worth, power, knowledge, identity, or special relationships; jealous is that where they believe the sexual partner is unfaithful; persecutory by which they believe they or someone they are close to is being maltreated; somatic, in which they believe they have a physical problem, defect, or illness; or, the mixed type, in which more than one of the previous types is present.