Psychiatric Aspects of Medically Unexplained Symptoms

Medically unexplained otorhinolaryngological symptoms: Towards integrated psychiatric care.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the presence of medically unexplained otorhinolaryngological symptoms in a patient cohort and propose an interdisciplinary approach for their care. STUDY DESIGN Prospective cohort study. METHODS The study describes the population of patients presenting consecutively at the Department of Otorhinolaryngology at the Maastricht University Medical Center. Patients with symp...

Medically unexplained neurological symptoms

A 56-year-old woman with seronegative polyarthritis presented with a four-year history of lower back pain and right-sided sciatica. On examination she had reduced power and impaired sensation in her right leg. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the spine revealed anterior degenerative slip of L4 on L5 with moderate overall reduction in canal calibre and osteophyte encroachment in the right lat...

Medically unexplained physical symptoms in medical practice: a psychiatric perspective.

Clusters of medically unexplained physical symptoms have been referred to in the literature by many different labels, including somatization, symptom-based conditions, and functional somatic syndromes, among many others. The traditional medical perspective has been to classify and study these symptoms and functional syndromes separately. In psychiatry, current taxonomies (Diagnostic and Statist...

Explaining medically unexplained symptoms.

Patients with medically unexplained symptoms comprise from 15% to 30% of all primary care consultations. Physicians often assume that psychological factors account for these symptoms, but current theories of psychogenic causation, somatization, and somatic amplification cannot fully account for common unexplained symptoms. Psychophysiological and sociophysiological models provide plausible medi...

Consequences of Medically Unexplained Symptoms