For this week, you will be discussing how a mood disorder (e.g., major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, generalized anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, separation anxiety disorder) could impact a child or adolescent who already has a significant health concern.
For this examination, the patient is an 8-year-old girl who has been diagnosed with a mixed-germ cell tumor on her ovary. After surgery, the patient will have to have 12 weeks of chemotherapy. How might explaining this process to this child be modified if she had one of the mood disorders above? How might this experience be interpreted and internalized by this young child? What about in your exchanges while she is in-patient for chemotherapy? How might you engage with her when she is presenting as more anxious or depressed, for instance, than has been normal?