OVERVIEW
This page is dedicated to organizing various examples of standardized exam questions whose answer is conversion disorder. While this may seem a odd practice, it is useful to see multiple examples of how conversion disorder will be characterized on standardized exams (namely the boards and the shelf exams). This page is not meant to be used as a tradition question bank (as all of the answers will be the same), however seeing the classic “test” characterization for a disease is quite valuable.
QUESTION EXAMPLES
Question # 1
A 55 year old woman comes tot he clinic because she has been progressively losing her voice since her husband of 20 years died 10 months ago. She writes her answers during the medical interview. She explains that initially her voice was hoarse, and she thought it was a result of her prolonged and loud crying. After her hoarseness became worse (even though she stopped crying as much) she began to realize that something else was going on. Since the death of her husband, she has been very sad and sometimes cried herself to sleep at night. She explains that it was her fault that her husband died. The day of his death she has argued with him because she had just discovered that he was cheating on her. During this argument she yelled and told him that she wished he would die. A few hours later police informed her that he had died in a traffic collision. Her physical exam shows not abnormalities, and a mental status examination demonstrates a blunted affect, and that th patent becomes tearful when discussing the argument with her husband. What is the most likely diagnosis for this patient.
Page Updated: 09.17.2016