ABSTRACT
The personality change consists of a clinically significant exacerbation of personality tendencies rather than emergence of completely new personality characteristics. Various symptom characteristics that represent the personality change can predominate in the clinical presentation. Personality change due to a general medical condition is commonly known as organic personality disorder or organic personality syndrome, and is coded on Axis I, not on Axis II. Absence of test findings indicative of personality change or of abnormalities does not rule out the possibility that the personality change was due to the general medical condition. If the general medical condition improves, a concomitant improvement in the personality disturbance is expected, resulting in the need for a decrease in the dose of medications or the elimination of medications. The acute effects of general medical conditions or common clinical characteristics of degenerative diseases are excluded from the diagnostic criteria.
