Causes of psychophysiologic disorder (PPD) symptoms are so diverse that even after assessing thousands of patients I still encounter new variations. Earlier this year a 65 year old retired nurse practitioner from Oregon whom I have worked with in the past contacted me because of months of abdominal pain. She suspected PPD because medical evaluation was unrevealing and her symptoms fluctuated for no obvious reason.
Posts Tagged ‘Stress History’
ACEs and Illness in Primary Care
Tuesday, February 10th, 2015Psychosocial Context (2)
Monday, September 20th, 2010Continuing from the last post, recall that in my practice a large majority of over 7000 patients with medically unexplained symptoms were referred due to failure to grasp the their psychosocial issues.
Psychosocial Context (1)
Saturday, September 11th, 2010The health care system has a strong bias toward viewing people as purely biological organisms. This approach ignores two critical facts:
Screening Questionnaire for Hidden Stress
Thursday, July 1st, 2010One of the most frequent requests I receive is for a way to screen for the presence of hidden stresses. Most of those who inquire are interested in administering a questionnaire to patients/clients as they wait to see their clinician. No suitably brief, scientifically validated questionnaire exists that covers the full range of hidden stresses but I have created a reasonable question set and added it to the Book Overview section of this site.
Stress Illness and Psychiatry (2)
Wednesday, June 16th, 2010Remarkably, mental health practitioners (MHP) are largely uninvolved with the largest single group of people with mental health issues. This is because those issues are manifesting most prominently as physical symptoms. These patients find it difficult to imagine that their illness is stress-related. They seek help from medical clinicians, few of whom have formal training in stress illness diagnosis and so usually don’t refer to MHPs. Even when patients are referred, few MHPs have much experience with what to look for in a patient complaining of physical symptoms. It is uncommon for MHPs to know that they can relieve these symptoms using their usual techniques augmented by a Stress History.
Stress Illness Screening (3)
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010The search continues for a valid, ultra-short screening questionnaire for stresses capable of causing physical illness. Once that is in place, the next step is for primary care clinicians to learn how to further evaluate a patient with a positive screen. This should then lead to systems for follow-up care and monitoring, including the option of referral to mental health clinicians experienced with patients who have physical symptoms.
Stress Illness Screening (2)
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010In the last post we saw four questions (PHQ – 4) that screen for anxiety and depression. These are described in the reference below (1). However, to document that screening questions achieve their intended goals and are scientifically valid, it is not enough merely to come up with what sound like reasonable questions.
Stress Illness Screening (1)
Friday, May 7th, 2010One of the most frequent questions I get after my talks to medical clinicians is about rapid ways to screen for sources of stress. A validated questionnaire that revealed stress issues prior to the patient being seen would, theoretically, enable more accurate diagnosis in less time.
