Feature | Description and examples |
Immobility | Hypokinetic or akinetic behavior that is not influenced by external stimuli. |
Stupor | Decreased alertness, hypoactivity, and diminished responses to voice and painful stimuli. |
Excitement | Impulsive, frantic, and stereotypic behavior that may include sudden outbursts of talking, singing, dancing, and tearing of clothes. Patients may be irritable and damage objects or injure themselves or others. Excitement may suddenly alternate with stupor. |
Mutism | Patients are awake but verbally unresponsive. Mutism is not always associated with immobility and may appear elective. Less severe forms of mutism include lack of spontaneous speech, sluggish responses to questions with automatic answers such as "I don't know" (speech-prompt), and speaking with progressively less volume until speech is an inaudible mumble (prosectic speech). |
Posturing (catalepsy) | Voluntarily maintaining a position of the body or a body part for a long time; eg, standing or lying down in the same position, an exaggerated pucker, lying in bed with the head elevated and unsupported as if on a pillow, holding arms above the head or raised in a prayer-like manner, and holding fingers and hands in odd positions. |
Echophenomena | Echolalia (senseless repetition of another person's utterances) and echopraxia (senseless repetition of another person's movements). |
Speech mannerisms | Robotic speech, feigned foreign accent, palilalia or verbigeration (involuntary repetition of words or phrases). |
Behavioral mannerisms | Odd, purposeful movements, such as holding hands as if they were handguns or saluting passersby, or exaggerated or stilted caricatures of mundane movements. |
Stereotypy | Non-goal-directed, repetitive movements that often are awkward or stiff; examples include grimacing, teeth/tongue clicking, rocking, sniffing, biting, or automatically touching or tapping. |
Staring | Fixed gaze with little or no scanning of the environment and decreased blinking. |
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