Put your knowledge and skills to the test with this case of Miss A, a 13 year old girl who is admitted to a pediatric unit after an episode of syncope and LOC that was preceded by prodromal symptoms. During an initial assessment, the patient reports significant preoccupation with weight gain and tells you that she has been restricting her calories and engaging in purging behaviours including vomiting, laxative use, and excessive exercise. She had stopped eating and drinking 3 days prior to her presentation to hospital. While demonstrating multiple depressive symptoms, her MSE most notably shows considerable psychomotor retardation, a blunted affect, poverty of speech, and delayed responses.
Miss A has no personal history of mental illness, but does endorse passive suicidal ideation and self-injurious behaviour recently. There is also family history of both bipolar disorder and anorexia nervosa.
How would you work this patient up? Can you come up with a diagnosis or treatment plan?
"A depressed adolescent who won’t eat and reacts slowly" by Shephali Sharma and Julie Alonso-Katzowitz (Current Psychiatry)
Miss A has no personal history of mental illness, but does endorse passive suicidal ideation and self-injurious behaviour recently. There is also family history of both bipolar disorder and anorexia nervosa.
How would you work this patient up? Can you come up with a diagnosis or treatment plan?
"A depressed adolescent who won’t eat and reacts slowly" by Shephali Sharma and Julie Alonso-Katzowitz (Current Psychiatry)
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