Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Symptoms, Signs, Risk Factors, and Diagnosis
Chronic fatigue syndrome is a serious, often disabling illness that affects energy, thinking, sleep, pain, and the body’s response to physical or mental effort....
Chronic Depressive Disorder Symptoms, Signs, and Risk Factors
Chronic depressive disorder describes a long-lasting pattern of depressive symptoms that can become woven into daily life. Many people do not experience it as...
Chronic anxiety causes and risk factors: Why persistent worry develops
Anxiety is part of the body’s normal alarm system, but it becomes a health concern when worry, fear, tension, or nervous-system arousal persist beyond...
Chronic Adjustment Disorder Symptoms, Causes, Risk Factors, and Complications
A stressful life event does not have to be catastrophic to overwhelm a person’s ability to cope. A relationship breakup, job loss, illness, family...
Childhood-Onset Schizophrenia Overview: Early Signs, Risk Factors, and Diagnosis Context
Childhood-onset schizophrenia is a rare but serious psychiatric condition in which symptoms of schizophrenia begin before age 13. It can affect how a child...
Charles Bonnet syndrome and Vision Loss: Symptoms, Causes, and Signs
Seeing things that are not actually there can be frightening, especially when the images are vivid or detailed. Charles Bonnet syndrome is a specific...
Central sleep apnea: Overview, Symptoms, Causes, Risk Factors, and Complications
Central sleep apnea is a sleep-related breathing disorder in which breathing repeatedly slows or stops because the brain’s breathing-control system does not send a...
Catatonic Schizophrenia Overview, Diagnosis Context, and Complications
Catatonia can be frightening to witness because it may look like a person has become “frozen,” unreachable, unusually rigid, or suddenly agitated in a...
Catatonia Signs, Symptoms, Causes, and Diagnostic Context
Catatonia is a serious neuropsychiatric syndrome that affects movement, speech, behavior, awareness, and sometimes the body’s automatic functions, such as heart rate, blood pressure,...
Catastrophizing disorder: Signs, Risk Factors, and Mental Health Effects
Catastrophizing is a pattern of thinking in which the mind rapidly jumps to the worst possible outcome and treats that outcome as likely, unbearable,...
Cataplexy in Adults and Children: Signs, Causes, and Risks
Cataplexy is a sudden, temporary loss of muscle tone that happens while a person is awake, usually after a strong emotion such as laughter,...
Capgras Syndrome Signs and Symptoms: How the Condition Appears
Capgras syndrome is a rare but serious form of delusional misidentification. A person with this syndrome believes that someone familiar, often a spouse, parent,...
Cannabis-Induced Psychotic Disorder Overview: Symptoms, Signs, and Risks
Cannabis-induced psychotic disorder is a serious mental health condition in which hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, or severely disorganized thinking develop in close connection with cannabis...
Caffeine-Induced Anxiety Disorder Signs, Risk Factors, and Complications
Caffeine can sharpen alertness for some people, but in others it can push the body into a state that feels frighteningly similar to anxiety...
By proxy syndrome Explained: Signs, Causes, and Diagnostic Context
By proxy syndrome is a serious pattern in which one person falsifies, exaggerates, or causes illness in someone else, usually someone dependent on their...
Bulimia Nervosa Symptoms, Signs, Causes, and Health Risks
Bulimia nervosa is a serious eating disorder marked by repeated episodes of binge eating followed by behaviors meant to “undo” or compensate for eating....
Bruxism Overview: Teeth Grinding, Jaw Clenching, and Health Effects
Bruxism is repeated jaw-muscle activity that may involve teeth grinding, teeth clenching, firm tooth contact, jaw bracing, or jaw thrusting. It can happen during...
Brief Psychotic Disorder Overview, Symptoms, Causes, and Diagnostic Context
Brief psychotic disorder is a short-lasting episode of psychosis that begins suddenly and causes a temporary break from a person’s usual sense of reality....
Brief Dissociative Disorder and Short-Term Dissociation: Symptoms, Risks, and Red Flags
Dissociation can be frightening when it happens suddenly: a person may feel detached from their body, unreal, emotionally numb, confused about time, or unable...
Brain fog Symptoms, Signs, Causes, Risk Factors, and Effects
Brain fog is a common way people describe feeling mentally slow, cloudy, scattered, or unable to think as clearly as usual. It is not...