Mental disease and mental acumen

[lastbastion]

Okay, here are two questions for all you intelligent doctors and medical students out there.

1. Can mental illness be a result of age regression or mentally not aging? I was observing some children today, around 5 years of age, and they were doing normal cute kid stuff. Talking to themselves, to imaginary friends, make believing they were in a war, singing random songs, etc. And while i was watching them, it occured to me that adults with mental illness do some of these same things, that is talk to themselves, sing random songs, see things that aren't there. So could these later symptoms of mental illness be the result of a kind of age regression, or a non-developing brain in the sense of reality? Could they infact be the worsening of these childhood personalities through some inhibited or overzeaolous chemical processes?

2. Okay, second question. How much information do you really retain after your medical education? Even though I made A's in my courses I took last semester, I probably couldn't tell you squat about anything I learned. I mean, I do remember few, very significant pieces of info, but in a testing situation, I would do poorly now. So, how much do you really know after you complete an education? And how important is it that you know most of your first 2 years? Is there a limit to how much you retain?

Thanks guys.

Also if Quinn is reading...you're my idol.

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[aphistis]

Originally posted by lastbastion
Okay, here are two questions for all you intelligent doctors and medical students out there.

1. Can mental illness be a result of age regression or mentally not aging? I was observing some children today, around 5 years of age, and they were doing normal cute kid stuff. Talking to themselves, to imaginary friends, make believing they were in a war, singing random songs, etc. And while i was watching them, it occured to me that adults with mental illness do some of these same things, that is talk to themselves, sing random songs, see things that aren't there. So could these later symptoms of mental illness be the result of a kind of age regression, or a non-developing brain in the sense of reality? Could they infact be the worsening of these childhood personalities through some inhibited or overzeaolous chemical processes?

2. Okay, second question. How much information do you really retain after your medical education? Even though I made A's in my courses I took last semester, I probably couldn't tell you squat about anything I learned. I mean, I do remember few, very significant pieces of info, but in a testing situation, I would do poorly now. So, how much do you really know after you complete an education? And how important is it that you know most of your first 2 years? Is there a limit to how much you retain?

Thanks guys.

Also if Quinn is reading...you're my idol.

1. This is a question for psychologists (or psychiatrists), not med students (or dental ones, for my case). I have some psych background, but you'd do better posting this in the clinical psych forum.

2. The second question is obviously not for me to answer.

 

[souljah1]

I think one of the factors associated with mental illness is that their thoughts and perceptions have a negative impact on their ability to cope in society. I don't think kids playing with their imaginary friends goes along with this. And playing with an imaginary friend is quite different that auditory/command hallucinations. I'd also add that the overwhelming majority of mental illness incidences are things like depression, anxiety, bipolar, etc. That doesn't really fit in with mental regression all that much. But I would say that plenty of kids show signs of obsessive compulsion or atleast that sort of personality 'disorder'. Interesting thought though.

 

[Sessamoid]

Re: retention of medical education

Having been through the whole process, I'd say that it depends a lot on what field you go into. If you go into a non-generalist specialty, you'll probably lose almost everything. The generalist retains a good deal more of what he learns in medical school, though a lot of the details will be fuzzy. The details aren't really important to remember most of the time anyway, just the parts that relate to a particular case.

 

[citygirl]

1) I dunno.

2) In medical school you will go over important concepts repeatedly, so eventually it does stick. I didn't feel I retained a lot from undergrad either, but I was able to pull it out of the back of my brain when I needed it. I couldn't pass a physics test right now but I don't need to.

 

[Vader]

That is an interesting thought on mental illness. There certainly are striking similarities. However, as souljah1 noted, there are also profound differences that suggest that mental illness is not simply a regression to childhood.

On the other hand, there certainly is quite a bit of interest in the structural and functional brain abnormalities seen in diseases such as schizophrenia. In particular, the frontal lobes seem to be heavily affected in many psychiatric illnesses, leading to some of the most debilitating symptoms such as cognitive impairment, lack of organization/planning, flat affect, emotional blunting, lack of volition, etc. Other "frontal" symptoms include impulsivity, disinhibition, inability to maintain attention, perseveration, and hyperactivity. Some of these symptoms may appear on a cursory level to be similar to behaviors exhibited by children, so in a sense you may be correct.