Depression. All about the disease, treatment, symptoms.

This syndrome is also called organic psychosyndrome, as well as Walter-BUEL syndrome. The cause of the syndrome is a lesion of the brain as an organ. It is noteworthy that this syndrome marks the border between real life and fiction. Only a fictional hero can constantly hit the head with something heavy, sharp or explosive, pour megalitres of fire water into it, get meningitis and go into a coma, and then R-once — and everything is as it was, just a couple of scars adorning a manly face, and not a single hint of changes in the psyche. Believe me, in reality, the brain is much more tender and does not forgive such indecent treatment of itself. Well, unless one day genetics will reach unprecedented heights, and there will be woodpecker warriors…

Leading, obligate symptoms are represented by three groups.

• Affective disorder. They are quite diverse, but they have one thing in common: the psyche does not have enough strength to keep the will in check, as well as to maintain the same mood for a long time: a person simply breathes out, the fuse passes, and the mood changes, and quite sharply. From here:

Irritability (no strength to endure) – but quickly passing;

Incontinence (after all, the strength to hold the closet of my soul on the lock, takes a lot);

Emotional lability (flared — calm — burst into tears — comforted — laugh — tears — to begin the cycle anew);

The grouchy, grumbling — even to them that in humans is almost always strong enough; euphoria and carelessness-this is when the critical attitude to the situation and to yourself has already hopelessly waved its tail and went ashore; indifference and apathy — when the forces are no longer even for emotions.

Memory and attention disorders. As for memory, first of all, the ability to remember and reproduce the events of the current moment suffers: from a decrease in the volume of stored and reproduced information to fixation amnesia (ate-forgot-reproached his wife for negligence-ate-forgot). At the same time, the memory of earlier events in life, especially those that preceded the development of the syndrome, can remain unchanged for a long time, but over time it also fades.

Attention becomes passive (that is, the person himself is not able to arbitrarily focus on something), distracted, like a first-grader at the end of the lesson, scattered and quickly exhausted.

Disorders of intelligence and comprehension. First of all, it is the loss of the ability to think and act creatively (of course, if there was any such ability at all). People stop looking for new non-standard ways to solve problems, more often use the established stereotypes, gradually becoming their hostage. Such a patient is painfully difficult, sometimes impossible to master anything new, he becomes forced to be conservative. New ideas do not come to mind in a hurry, and then they do not come to visit at all. Thinking itself becomes more and more mundane, concrete-visual, the ability to abstract disappears. Further — more: it becomes more difficult to think, to solve even standard life tasks, to make decisions independently. Thinking loses its flexibility and is no longer able to fly, it becomes rigid, bogged down in unnecessary details and minutiae, being unable to grasp the whole problem and see the prospects.

The group of facultative syndromes is quite diverse and diverse: it can be perception disorders (illusions, hallucinations, senestopathies), thinking disorders (phobias, obsessions, super-valuable and even delusional ideas), symptoms of a violation of the autonomic nervous system (remember such a widespread diagnosis as vegetative dystonia?), neurological symptoms.

The course of the psycho-organic syndrome is more often stationary, but it is also progressive. And regressive. Pretty typical relationship-being of patients with external factors: they are sensitive to weather and atmospheric pressure (meteosensitivity), the temperature (in most cases heat is worse), to riding in vehicles (many swayed); any infectious diseases, intoxication (including alcohol), exacerbation of chronic diseases.

There are four variants of the psycho-organic syndrome. The sequence in which they are set out is not accidental: when the condition becomes heavier, the progress of the disease, the change of options will take place in this order.

Asthenic version. In the foreground — weakness and exhaustion of mental processes. Here and emotional hyperesthesia, when a person violently, but not for long reacts to any remark, criticism, even just a change in intonation, not to mention sharp sounds (the alarm clock is better to have several degrees of protection from physical influences), flashes of light (the photographer also), unexpected touches (so be careful with the desire to Pat the back on the shoulder). It is also a rapid fatigue, when a person, having taken up a task, deflates like a punctured balloon, and the remaining rag is no longer able to do much. This is a rapid change of mood, this is the inability to focus on one thing for a long time, this is a decrease in memory — small, mainly due to difficulties with remembering, but already quite noticeable.

Explosive version. Emotions are brighter and more brutal, their manifestations have the character of an explosion, it is not just irritability-it is malignity, turning into anger, and in the intervals — a sullen and depressed dysphoric mood with a wandering grid of sight. Grumpiness, disgust, intolerance and grumbling gradually replace everything else. Memory is getting worse, it is becoming more difficult to remember and recall, events are leaving like water through a sieve, leaving only a few grains of the most significant events. It becomes more difficult to learn new experiences and think at all. But it is very sensitive to any events, words and actions that can somehow hurt or offend (even if it was not intended at all).

Euphoric version. A person is no longer able to correctly and critically assess himself and the surrounding environment, so the psyche, mercifully clearing a place in the dump of life, places him in the middle of the Potemkin village, in a jacket and with a Bayan. Why go to the trouble when everything is fine? Outbursts of anger sometimes do occur — when trying to return to reality, to poke your nose at the facts, but then again comes the euphoria. It is no longer possible to think creatively or even productively, so the remnants of life experience, stereotypes and reflexes come to the rescue. Decisions are ill-considered (because there is nothing to do), frivolous (in tune with the prevailing mood), superficial and absurd, but this absurdity is not something new, but rather an old and familiar applied to the wrong place. Professional skills that were still somehow preserved in the previous, explosive version, are also gradually lost. The lack of productive activity is more than made up for by an excess of mobility and fussiness. Memory deteriorates to the point of fixation amnesia.

Apathetic version. The forces for emotions are no longer there, instead of them — indifference and apathy. A person can lie in bed for hours and days, getting up only to the table and to the toilet. Or without getting up at all. Interests — almost no, except how to eat. Wash up, take a bath or shower — this is a feat. Going outside is an almost impossible mission. Thinking becomes slow, tight, like a rusty bolt, stuck in the details — far from being clever and quick-witted! Memory does not hold current events and gradually loses earlier ones. Skills that were honed to automatism in the past (making eggs, hanging a shelf on the wall) are also going somewhere.