Disorders and Diseases of the Nervous System

Abstract

The ICD devotes two classes, 5 and 6, to mental disorders and to diseases of the nervous system and sense organs. We combine them here as there is little mortality directly assignable to the first, and some difficulty must be present in determining, for example, that migraine is an organic disease rather than a mental disorder or that senile dementia is a mental disorder rather than a disease. The rubrics of class 5 with their ICD numbers are as follows: 290, senile and presenile organic psychotic conditions; 291, alcoholic psychoses; 292, drug psychoses; 293, transient organic psychotic conditions; 294, other organic psychotic conditions (chronic); 295, schizophrenic psychoses; 296, affective psychoses (manic-depressive psychosis). Rubrics ICD 297–319 are largely concerned with symptoms rather than with fully developed diseases and so are not considered further.