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Can Cognitive Disorder NOS Arise Overnight And Completely Disappear?
Question: Here is a hypothetical type of question about a mental condition. What would you say if you saw someone who had been diagnosed with Cognitive Disorder NOS and concurrently with nothing, decided to take treatment for it with Dr. who diagnosed it, that Dr. got them to in their opinion be on maintenance with no medication needed and wanted periodic follow up visits, then patient went to a different doctor who found no mental health problems, the treatment was for a year and a half. Could this condition have started "overnight" as they had a normal evaluation at the same time, not more than a month before that, then gone away in a year? If you were the third doctor and saw no symptoms, that resembled this, and knew of the normal status evaluation and felt they were normal, could they take the two normal opinions and would that overrule or be acceptable for defining current status? Would the prior finding by one doctor cause you to conclude they still had the condition or would it sometimes help you do that but be optional such that you could diagnose normal status with that in their history? In this case if the patient had had only that and no other mental problems or history, physical was O.K., the situation like that.
Brief Answer:
As below.
Detailed Answer:
Hi,
Welcome to Healthcare Magic!
Yes, it is possible for Cognitive Disorder NOS to arise "overnight" and completely disappear after a period of time. For example, mild cognitive difficulties arising after a medical condition like febrile illness or concussion or drug reaction or any such cause can arise over a very short duration of time and disappear over the next few months. The doctors who assess the patient before and after this time interval will not find anything abnormal with the patient. But that does not mean that the doctor who made the diagnosis of cognitive disorder NOS must have been wrong.
It is often difficult to make diagnosis in retrospect. The third doctor can only guess as to whether the second doctor made a mistake or not, but can never be sure as patients often do not exactly remember what was happening with them a year back, especially if the symptoms are mild.
I hope this clears up things for you.
Best wishes.
Dr Preeti Parakh
MD Psychiatry
As below.
Detailed Answer:
Hi,
Welcome to Healthcare Magic!
Yes, it is possible for Cognitive Disorder NOS to arise "overnight" and completely disappear after a period of time. For example, mild cognitive difficulties arising after a medical condition like febrile illness or concussion or drug reaction or any such cause can arise over a very short duration of time and disappear over the next few months. The doctors who assess the patient before and after this time interval will not find anything abnormal with the patient. But that does not mean that the doctor who made the diagnosis of cognitive disorder NOS must have been wrong.
It is often difficult to make diagnosis in retrospect. The third doctor can only guess as to whether the second doctor made a mistake or not, but can never be sure as patients often do not exactly remember what was happening with them a year back, especially if the symptoms are mild.
I hope this clears up things for you.
Best wishes.
Dr Preeti Parakh
MD Psychiatry
Note: For further guidance on mental health, Click here.
Above answer was peer-reviewed by :
Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar
Answered by
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