As A Client, I Played The Role Of An Individual With Anorexia

You are a nurse on an inpatient psychiatric unit. J.M., a 23-year-old woman, was admitted to the psychiatric unit last night after assessment and treatment at a local hospital emergency department (ED) for “blacking out at school.” She has been given a preliminary diagnosis of anorexia nervosa. As you begin to assess her, you notice that she has very loose clothing, she is wrapped in a blanket, and her extremities are very thin. She tells you, “I don't know why I'm here. They're making a big deal about nothing.” She appears to be extremely thin and pale, with dry and brittle hair, which is very thin and patchy, and she constantly complains about being cold. As you ask questions pertaining to weight and nutrition, she

A single father watched his daughter, 17 years old, dwindle down to 72 pounds. He begged her to eat, but she would cry and push the plate away. He was irritated and turned to his friends at work complaining his daughter was taking dieting way too far. He would scream at her “Stop! This is nonsense, just eat!”. This father, like many other Americans, did not understand that his daughter could not just stop being Anorexic. The common misconception is that Anorexia Nervosa is just someone obsessed with losing weight. Many people believe that Anorexics look in the mirror and smile at their thinness and progress. This is so untrue, they look in the mirror and wish for a way out.

Smith has been presenting with depression and anxiety along with chest pains, stomachaches, and headaches. The depression and anxiety symptoms appeared about 3 months ago when Mrs. Smith changed jobs. She also reported having trouble keeping details straight at work and felt that she was not as “sharp as she previously had been. Mrs. Smith expressed that she had relational problems with her children and also found that her daughter was abusing narcotics. Mrs. Smith also reported symptoms of being tearful, fatigued, with reduced appetite, feeling easily overwhelmed, and ruminating thoughts. Mrs. Smith reported that 6 months ago she also started to become overly emotional in stressful

In order to diagnose Demi, I used a multitude of DSMs for each of the diseases that she showed signs of. To start off, however, I used the mental status exam during her first visit. I used the mental status exam during our first initial meeting and based upon it I have ruled out any disorder where she could possibly bring harm to others, but she does pose a certain risk to herself where I would like to put her on suicide watch while she is here. During the meeting her appearance was normal for someone who had just gotten off of a long plane ride, her speech and eye contact were normal, and she had a full affect. And, as expected, her mood seemed to be anxious, depressed, irritable, and possibly angry. Her cognition was normal; she had no orientation or memory impairment and had a normal attention. Perception was normal with no hallucinations, but one aspect of her thoughts gives me a reason to put her on suicide watch. Demi has no homicidality or delusions, but she does self-harm which could point to suicide if pushed far enough. She was however very cooperative with answering my questions, but at the same time was agitated at the fact she was in rehab. Her eating disorder had made itself obvious to me, but over the next few days I had noticed some serious mood shifts that could indicate some form of a mood disorder. After further research I came across the DSM for Bipolar

I asked her why she felt the need to come in, what was going on in her life, how her home life was, etc. She was distant but quickly became comfortable with my presence. During the first session she admitted to feeling depressed, though her symptoms sounded as such I decided to wait until the second session to come up with a conclusion. After the second session and listening to her talk about the daily loss of energy, feeling of worthlessness, insomnia, lack of interest, and restlessness I concluded that she did indeed have Major Depression. On the day of the third appointment I explained the nature of depression fully to her. She needed to know that it wasn’t simply a phase but that it was a chemical imbalance in her brain causing this. I went on to explain that practices that she may have tried such as dieting, right-thinking/visualization, and meditation, though potentially helpful to the body would not “cure” depression or balance the chemicals in her brain. I needed to make sure she knew that this was something that could only be helped with

Rationale: Jennifer has been presenting with symptoms for unspecified amount of time. Jennifer meets six of the criteria for symptoms being present during the same 2-week period and represents a change from previous functioning. Jennifer is depressed most of the day, nearly every day, has diminished interest in all or almost all activities most of the days, nearly every day, has fatigue or loss of energy nearly every day, feelings of worthlessness, and diminished ability to think or concentrate, is having recurrent thoughts of death, recurrent suicidal ideation without a specific plan. The symptoms have cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, and other functioning areas. There is no know substance or medical condition and occurrence is not better explained by Schizophrenia Spectrum or Psychotic Disorders. Jennifer has never had a manic episode or a hypomanic episode. Possible family history of depression - mother.

Christine is a sixteen year old girl who has severely restricted her dietary intake. She is currently forty nine kilograms and height 163cm. Her mother says she was 60kgs six months ago.

After watching the video on “Dying to be Thin,” the one statement that really stuck with me was that in order for someone to have some kind of eating disorder, there has to be vulnerability. I find that statement to be extremely true. There needs to be a sense of vulnerability for someone to feel so down about themselves that in order for them to make them feel better, they have to change their body image for them to feel like they are attractive. The video really specifically highlights the issues with anorexia nervosa compared to bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder. For clinicians and researchers, this may be a difficult to really find

The first step in the treatment of anorexia is to aid the client in adapting a more standardized eating pattern. A dietitian may intervene at this point to assist the affected person to adopt more healthy eating behaviors. The counselor's role is to gradually help the client begin to adopt a more normal eating style (Shekter-Wolfson et al 13). In all cases, however, there are six goals of any treatment process:

The patient also experienced symptoms in the past that could potentially be related to Unspecified Bipolar Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder. L.S. reported that at times she has experienced frequent shifts in her mood such as having an abundant amount of energy. When L.S. experienced this she stated, “I sometimes don’t need sleep”. L.S. currently denied experiencing these symptoms and the last time it occurred was 6 months

My patient’s name is Eddie Weinstein. He is a 55 year old, homosexual, single male. He has Bipolar II Disorder. This is a disorder where people have hypomanic and depressive episodes. He has a combination of both manic and depression symptoms and it was hard to tell what he had at first but I soon figured it out. His manic symptoms are: having a lot of energy, having trouble sleeping, becoming more active than usual, having increased activity levels, feeling agitated or irritable and thinking he can do a lot of things at once. His depression symptoms are: feeling tired and slowed down, having trouble remembering and concentrating, very little energy, sad, empty inside and thoughts about suicide and death.

The biggest concern that doctors want to help with is any health problems the person may have from not eating. Doctors also want to give their patients a healthy weight, as well a proper meal plan (Anorexia Nervosa Causes). They do this so their patients know what to eat and still feel healthy. Dietitians are also used for the purpose of informing patient too. Doctors and dietitians can help with the physical part of Anorexia Nervosa, but therapists usually help with the mental part of the disease. Therapy will help with any depression or suicidal thoughts, which is necessary to keep patients safe life threatening situations (Nordqvist). All in all, doctors, dietitians, and therapists are needed to help someone with Anorexia become healthier and have a better relationship with food and their body (Find Best

Once that term was noticed, she began to fit under major depressive disorder. Her symptoms where very similar (i.e. insomnia, overeating, fatigue, constant depressed mood, ect.), but I did notice at the beginning of her session that she has been having these symptoms for a couple years. If she did go into the clinic earlier, she may have been first diagnosed with major depressive disorder. She also had similar symptoms (at first) to bipolar disorder. She had a history of at least one major depressive episode and these episodes where creating significant distress. The main factor that ruled out both bipolar I and bipolar II disorder was the fact that she did not have any manic episodes. She did state there were times were she felt “good”, but not in a manic state. The period of feeling “good” would not even constitute as a hypomanic episode because it only lasts a couple of hours, not a minimum of four days to a week eliminating the possibility of bipolar II disorder. Once I ruled out both bipolar disorders, the thought of cyclothymic disorder came into mind. She has had depressive symptoms for a minimum of 2 years, but there are rare period of feeling “good”. The description of her feeling “good” does not signify hypomanic symptoms and does not happen often. She does not have any ongoing substance use disorders and clearly stated that she did not want sleeping pills because

Four years ago, I was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. I was a sophomore in high school dealing with the stress of getting good grades, what I want to do with the rest of my life, and all while trying to fit in. My mother and I had moved to a new town two years’ prior for a fresh start, and thus was without majority of my family. While growing up I was of average weight for my height and age but was constantly made fun of by my classmates and family for not being ‘skinny’. I developed these habits because I thought it would make may me happy, but it only lead to pain. I seeked help but was discouraged by what I received. I was met by family and some healthcare providers who believe that it was only about the food and not

Objective: To describe eating patterns, eating behaviors, to highlight some of the problem people face when dealing with an illness or a disorder, adult struggle more from eating disorder. Some reason why it is more difficult is because of work, taking care of their house whole and family; this illness is a relentless pursuit of thinness, a misrepresentation of body image and intense fear of gaining weight, and extremely disturbed eating behavior. Many people with anorexia see themselves as overweight, even when they are starved or are clearly malnourished. Eating food and weight control