Changes proposed to key psychiatry manual

[amyrose2712]

Changes proposed to key psychiatry manual
Controversial revision alters diagnostic definitions.
Heidi Ledford

The American Psychiatric Association is unveiling a host of suggested changes to its influential Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Proposed revisions include uniting several autism-related diagnoses, including Asperger's syndrome and Rett's syndrome, under the umbrella of autism spectrum disorder; introducing a diagnosis of gambling addiction; and eliminating the distinction between alcohol dependence and alcohol abuse.

The proposals, to be posted to the association's website (http://DSM5.org) on 10 February, will be open for public comment until 20 April. In July, the association will begin testing the changes in academic centres and hospitals by asking psychiatrists to feed back on how their work would be different using the new diagnoses. The revised manual, known as DSM-V because it is the fifth edition, is to be released in May 2013.

snip

One new proposal that concerns Volkmar is the decision to lump autism-related disorders into a single category called 'autism spectrum disorder'. The changes reflect recent autism research, he says, but he is concerned that the change was proposed without adequately considering its social ramifications. A diagnosis of 'autism' is often required to obtain social services such as access to special education programmes. "I worry that there'll be some potential for diluting the pool of services for children really in need," says Volkmar.

Other proposed changes run the gamut from eliminating the term 'mental retardation' — to be replaced with a new 'intellectual disability' category — to introducing diagnoses such as 'psychosis risk syndrome' and 'mild neurocognitive disorder', which are designed to catch patients in the early stages of a disorder. Early diagnosis could help target patients for early intervention, says William Carpenter, chair of the psychotic disorders work group and director of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center in Baltimore.

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100210/full/news.2010.60.html?s=news_rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+news%2Frss%2Fmost_recent+%28NatureNews+-+Most+recent+articles%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

[Odin2005]

1. This Aspie approves the changes.

[mopinko]

2. they were talking about this on npr, and one thing they are changing

is making it harder to declare a child bp. they are introducing a new disorder called temper dysfunction or some thing like that. they said this would preclude the use of many of the drugs that are given to kids without testing on kids, and also will make it harder for these kids to get things like therapeutic schools.
i think this is mostly a bad thing. lots of parents reject the drugs, anyway. but these kids need a lot of help to stay in school and stay on track. it feels like they are trying to close what they see as floodgates. or a loophole, depending on how cynical this all is.