Acute Psychosis

Also known as Brief Psychotic Disorder, this is an acute mental health condition when there is a loss of contact with reality. This is characteristised by one or more of following features.

• A reduced level of social functioning
• Blunted or inappropriate affect
• Changes in perception due to hallucination
• Changes in thinking due to delusion

Symptoms of acute psychosis include a brief period of delusion, hallucination, disorganised thoughts and/ or speech with reduced motivation and/or initiative-taking compared to baseline state.

This might occur in context of an acute stressor, such as bereavement, marriage breakdown, unemployment, imprisonment, accident, childbirth, or migration and social isolation.

The treatment includes medications.

Blood investigations and brain scans are sometimes performed to exclude medical conditions affecting the brain.

• Professor Roger Ho
• Dr Celine Wong
• Dr Chee Tji Tjian
• Dr Soo Shuenn Chiang