In general, do not capitalize the names of diseases, disorders, therapies, treatments, theories, concepts, hypotheses, principles, models, and statistical procedures.
The following are some common examples:
| autism spectrum disorder | anorexia nervosa |
| major depressive disorder | diabetes mellitus |
| lung cancer | leukemia |
| cognitive behavior therapy | bone marrow transplant |
| object permanence | theory of mind |
| associative learning model | law of effect |
| regression analysis | factor analysis |
The capitalization of diseases, disorders, therapies, and related terms is covered in Section 6.16 of the APA Publication Manual, Seventh Edition
This guidance is new to the 7th edition.
However, do capitalize personal names that appear within these kinds of terms, as demonstrated in the following examples.
| Alzheimer’s disease | Rett syndrome |
| non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma | Maslow’s hierarchy of needs |
| Freudian theory | Pavlovian conditioning |
From the APA Style blog
How to capitalize medication names
This blog post provides information on the APA Style capitalization guidelines for writing about medications.
Why titles have sentence case capitalization in APA Style references
Why are article titles and book titles in APA Style references in sentence case? The answer takes us back to the 1929 origins of APA Style and a guideline that continues to have practical advantages today.