The field of mental deficiency is one with which the psychiatrist is not always familiar. By the time he has obtained his training in the psychoses and neuroses, explored psychosomatic medicine, and spread his wings towards the horizon of social psychiatry, too often the opportunity is neglected to gain a full experience in this particular field. Mental deficiency has been described as the Cind...

The bibliography includes a lot of definitions of a mental handicap that is also called a mental deficiency or oligophrenia. At the present stage those definitions which are multi-aspect seem to be the most valuable. Lewicki gives the similar one in which “oligophrenia means a congenital or early acquired handicap or retardation of physical development, which often leads to disorders of social ...

Baraitser-Winter syndrome (BWS), first reported in 1988, is apparently due to genetic abnormalities that are still not well-defined, although many gene abnormalities are already discovered and de novo missense changes in the cytoplasmic actin-encoding genes (called ACTB and ACTG1) have been recently discovered. The syndrome combines facial and cerebral malformations. Facial malformations totall...

Prolidase deficiency is a rare autosomal recessive disorder characterized by recurrent and nonhealing skin ulcers along with facial dysmorphism and mental retardation. We report a 13-year-old girl who has clinical manifestation of Proliodase deficiency. It is a very rare disorder and no such case has been reported so far from Pakistan.

Goitre is the most common and visible ill-effect of iodine deficiency. A less obvious but more serious condition affecting millions of iodine deficient children includes impaired mental function, poor intellectual performance, lowered 10,. muscular disorders and impaired coordination and sluggishness. In pregnancy, iodine deficiency causes spontaneous abortions, still births and infant deaths.

CONTEXT Acute pancreatitis can lead to prolonged fasting and malnutrition. Many metabolic changes, including thiamine deficiency, may lead to the well know pancreatic encephalopathy. In this condition however the thiamine deficiency is rarely suspected. CASE REPORT We report the case of a 17-year-old woman with severe acute pancreatitis who developed mental status changes and ophthalmoplegia....

The problem of providing adequate care and treatment for patients suffering from mental disorder has become more acute in recent years for many reasons, not least amongst them being the increased numbers and longevity of the population in conjunction with their greater willingness to seek early advice and treatment. As a result, mental hospitals are faced with the dilemma of increasing their ad...

The Mental Health Act (Northern Ireland)?which has just received the Royal Assent?reflects a state of public opinion well in advance of that which has so far received legislative embodiment in this country, and is of special interest in that it surely outlines the shape of things to come. The Act deals both with mental illness and mental deficiency and is strikingly uncomplicated in its provisi...

contains the texts, copiously annotated, of the Lunacy, Mental Treatment and Mental Deficiency Acts as now amended, and the bewildered administrator and social worker is therefore no longer under the necessity of using copies of Acts slashed and mutilated by revolutionary alterations, or of checking up on every doubtful section which may or may not still hold good. The book, moreover, also incl...