Hypochondriasis

1
Hypochondriasis

• And Treatments for It

2
Index

• What it is
• Medical Treatments
• Cognitive Treatments
• Works Cited

3
What Is Hypochondria ?

• Hypochondria is a Somatoform disorder
• Hypochondriacs suffer from excessive anxiety over
  their health
• Often fear getting a severe illness, or believe
  that already have severe illness
• People with an illness or handicap can be
  hypochondriac, they become overly worried and
  often over react to their problem

4
What Is Hypochondria (cont)?

• Hypochondriacs often mistake mistake common body
  reactions as being signs of severe illness
• Hypochondriacs will often suffer pain and illness
  without biological cause.
• Hypochondriacs can cause a damage to themselves
  from excessive self checking and taking excessive
  medications to treat symptoms that are created in
  their heads.

5
Treatments Information

• Most Hypochondriacs seek doctors, for reassurance
  and testing, very few will seek psychiatric help,
  even after many expensive doctors visits
• Hypochondriacs are often accused of not being
  able to find comfort with and type of help, this
  is not the actual case
• Both medications and therapy have been shown to
  have positive affects for hypochondriacs

6
Treatment Information (cont)

• Hypochondria is often a secondary disorder and
  but can be found as a primary problem or even
  alone
• Often is associated with anxiety disorders or
  depression and is often treated in similar ways

7
Drug Treatments

• Studies show that that placebos are very
  effective in treating hypochondriacs
• 50 of hypochondriacs will report feeling better
  after being placed an a placebo
• Reason for this many be that they are not taking
  any medication to treat symptoms that are not
  biological in cause and their for have no
  unnecessary side effects

8
Drug Treatments

• Recent studies have found that fluoxetine
  (Prozac) has been successful in helping
  hypochondriacs
• Right now it is trying to be determined if the
  placebo affect is what helped or whether it has
  merits as a treatment on its own
• Tricyclic antidepressants have been found to be
  helpful in 66.7 of cases

9
Behavioral Therapy

• Had been shown to help in up to 80 of cases
• Behavior therapy uses learning to overcome
  specific problems
• Patients are taught to take a realist look at the
  problem and see that they are overreacting

10
Behavior Therapy

• Treatments common for anxiety disorders, are also
  used to stop harm from being done by self cheeks
  done too often or incorrectly
• Commonalities between obsessive compulsive
  disorder and hypochondria cause methods designed
  for one of them to often be tried on both

11
Works Cited

• Howes, Oliver. Hypocondriacs an overview with
  reference to medical students. BMJ Publishing
  Group, Student BMJ, Vol. 7, Nov. 1999, pg 410
• McKay, Dean and Fugen Neziroglu. Illness
  fixation responds to modified OCD
  treatment.Phychotherapy Letter, Vol. 7 Apr 1995
  p1
• News Updates Phycopharmacy Update, Vol. 8 Feb.
  1997 p5
• Somatoform Disorders 28 Aug 2001, 12 Dec. 2001.
  lthttpwww.psyweb.com/Mdisorder/somatd.htmlgt