A person who laughs one minute and cries the next without any clear stimulus is said to have:
Correct Answer: Labile affect
Description: This patient is showing features of labile affect. Affect refers to a feeling or emotion, which is experienced by a person in response to an external event or a thought. A person with labile affect experience a sudden change of emotion from one type to other. Lability is associated with emotional intemperateness, an abrupt unreflective expression of heightened emotion. Labile mood is seen in mood disorders such as bipolar illness and in borderline personality disorder. It may also occur in frontotemporal dementia and pseudobulbar palsy. Ref: Nurcombe B., Ebe M.H. (2008). Chapter 4. The Psychiatric Interview. In M.H. Ebe, P.T. Loosen, B. Nurcombe, J.F. Leckman (Eds), CURRENT Diagnosis & Treatment: Psychiatry, 2e.
Category:
Psychiatry
Get More
Subject Mock Tests
Practice with over 200,000 questions from various medical subjects and improve your knowledge.
Attempt a mock test nowMock Exam
Take an exam with 100 random questions selected from all subjects to test your knowledge.
Coming SoonGet More
Subject Mock Tests
Try practicing mock tests with over 200,000 questions from various medical subjects.
Attempt a mock test now