Psychiatric Emergencies in Family Practice

Crises are not a feature of depressive illness; but this illness needs to be considered in the diagnoses of three acute emergencies: the agitated patient, the withdrawn patient and the suicidal patient. A. The agitated patient. Restless, anguished, phrenetic and impor­ tunate behaviour. Differential diagnoses include hypomania, acute anxiety and grief, hysteria, drug intoxication, thyrotoxicosis, cerebrovascular accident or cerebral tumour. Agitated depression carries a relatively high risk...