Word salad (mental health)

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In context of e-mail spamming, see also Word salad (computer science).

In the mental health field, word salad (originally from the German Wortsalat) is used to describe the symptom of confused, and often repetitious, language that is symptomatic of various mental illnesses. It is usually associated with a manic presentation and other symptoms of serious mental illnesses, such as psychoses, including schizophrenia. It describes the apparently confused usage of words with no apparent meaning or relationship attached to them. In this context, it is considered to be a symptom of a formal thought disorder. In some cases word salad can be a sign of asymptomatic schizophrenia; e.g. the question "Why do people believe in God?" elicits a response like "Because he makes a twirl in life, my box is broken help me blue elephant. Isn't lettuce brave? I like electrons, hello."

Some more examples include:

• "Tissues without a triangular head lice be it with controller is the noodle man of ice pops and radio yes thanks."
• "So even with I but he river flow amber rod with it."
• "Spiders my mom is a notification true since not like wedding cake."
• "Vegetables interest my translucent memory taken from his ant mole hill radical."
• "Trust the bamboo of pastrami, for the infinite monkey boy is upon the arrival of distortion steam my vegetables."
• "Toothache is Greg in my brain lodged for ski symptoms inside out raspberry juice for tomorrow you are filthy."
• "You can't go sailing past honor for the liking of a room. These questions are birthday basements. To end the blue radish is the upside of luxury, and sparking a good lizard will only make tears fall in hindsight."

Word salad is in contrast to another symptom of cognitive disruption, loose association and cognitive slippage. It may, or may not, be grammatically correct depending on the severity of the disease and the particular mechanisms which have been impacted by it. Thus, "Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas" as well as "Blue does runs shaky lovely very" can be authentic word salads (one correct, one not) if they were produced as a result of mental disease or defect. In contrast, intentionally producing nonsense, as in the contrived palindrome "Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas" is not really considered word salad, due to the intentional production of that language. Word salad refers to a defect in processing and organizing language, as opposed to the ability to create a nonsense word which happens to conform to a very specific set of rules.

Listed to the right are the international diagnostic codes corresponding to Word salad. The American diagnostic codes, from the DSM-IV, do not specifically code for this disorder although they include it as a symptom under the diagnosis of Schizophrenia.

Word salad is a very serious condition that indicates a severe, pervasive disruption of many important systems of the brain. Word salad alone "can be recognized as grossly abnormal by college undergraduates" (Cohen, 1961) and as such is very useful in the diagnosis of many mental disorders. Pervasive disruptions of speech quickly raise flags of witness discomfort in anyone listening, further aiding to the diagnosis of abnormality.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Cluttering
• Schizophrenia
• Dysarthria
• Dysphasia
• Slurred speech
• DSM-IV
• ICD-9
• ICD10