A patient repeats exactly what the nurse says. This speech pattern is known as:

Appeared in: RML 2023

Explanation

Echolalia is the pathological, automatic, and often meaningless repetition of another person's words or phrases.
The term comes from the Greek roots 'echo' (to repeat) and 'lalia' (speech).
It is a symptom commonly associated with thought disturbances in conditions like schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorder, and certain neurological disorders.
The scenario describes a patient exactly repeating the nurse's words, which is the textbook definition of echolalia.

Why Other Options Were Wrong

Option B: Echopraxia involves the imitation of physical movements and gestures, not speech.
Option C: Neologism is the act of creating new, idiosyncratic words. The patient in the scenario is repeating existing words, not inventing new ones.
Option D: Word salad is a confused and unintelligible mixture of random words and phrases that lack grammatical structure or logical sense.

Related Visual

Clinical Relevance

Nursing practice connection: Use the key finding related to Disorders of thought process and speech patterns in psychiatric nursing to guide bedside assessment, documentation, and the next nursing action.
Recognizing speech patterns like echolalia is a fundamental nursing assessment skill in mental health. It provides valuable clues about a patient's thought processes and can help in diagnosing conditions like schizophrenia.
When communicating with a patient exhibiting echolalia, nurses should use short, simple, concrete phrases and avoid asking questions that can be easily repeated back without comprehension.
Documenting the specific type of speech disturbance is crucial for the interdisciplinary team to track the patient's condition and response to treatment.

How to Approach the Question

First, identify the key action described in the question stem. The core action is a patient 'repeats exactly what the nurse says'.
Understand that this is a question about specific terminology for speech patterns in psychiatry.
Analyze the root words of the options if possible. 'Echo' implies repetition, 'praxia' relates to action/movement, and 'lalia' relates to speech. 'Neo' means new, and 'logism' relates to word/speech.
Evaluate each option against the action described:
Echolalia (echo + speech): Repeating speech. This is a direct match.
Echopraxia (echo + action): Repeating actions. This is incorrect as the scenario involves speech.

Concept Tested & Keywords

Concept Tested: Disorders of thought process and speech patterns in psychiatric nursing.
Stem keywords: patient, repeats, nurse says, speech pattern
Lead-in keywords: known as

Question ID

QsItPv6oXIvUmVnwX1EhFS

Reference Book

E6 Robert Boland, Marcia L. Verduin - Kaplan and Sadock's Comprehensive Text of Psychiatry-Wolters Kluwer Health (2024) (pp 1-16525 of 16525) pp. 3795-3797, 1572-1574

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