Section II - Neurobehavioral and Neuropsychiatric Assessment

Summary

The genetic contribution to many neuropsychiatric disorders is disclosed by obtaining a family history. Patients with dissociative and conversion disorders often present to subspecialists in Behavioral Neurology & Neuropsychiatry (BN&NP). BN&NP remains a bastion of bedside medicine in an increasingly technological medical world. The clinician should screen for other symptoms when a dissociative or conversion disorder diagnosis is under consideration. Clinicians should routinely ask about nocturnal sleep timing and duration, sleep quality, and excessive daytime sleepiness. Many patients presenting with psychiatric symptoms have a remote history of traumatic brain injury (TBI), and a screening question about TBI should be routine in the psychiatric evaluation. Patients with many cerebral diseases, including incipient degenerative disease, cerebrovascular disease, multiple sclerosis, and past mild TBI, experience cognitive problems that are distressing and noticeable to others but not of a severity sufficient to warrant a diagnosis of dementia.