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Query: UMLS:C0011551 (depersonalization)
 1,117 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

From a sample of 1,005 patients admitted to the Psychiatric Hospital in Aarhus for the first time during the period 1950-1959 and diagnosed as suffering from manic-depressive psychosis or endogenous depression (affective psychoses), a subsample of 104 manic-depressive patients with anancastic symptoms in the history was selected. The 104 probands were individually matched with 104 non-anancastic probands with affective psychoses. The study was designed as a follow-up study, and the patients who were still living were seen personally. In the search for factors which could be used to distinguish affective psychoses with anancastic symptoms from affective psychoses without these traits, the incidence of a number of psychopathological features was evaluated based on the case histories and the information given by the patients at the follow-up. There was no difference as far as atypical, schizophrenia-like symptoms were concerned between the anancastic probands and the controls. Manic and hypomanic features were more frequent among the controls, corresponding to a greater number of bipolar psychoses among them. At the same time, the controls showed a significant preponderance of decidedly psychotic symptoms such as disturbances of consciousness, delusions and delusion-like ideas and hallucinations. Furthermore, retardation was more frequent among the controls. There was no difference in the suicidal behaviour of the two groups. Symptoms which were more often met among the anancastic depressives were: anxiety, agitation, diurnal variation of mood and early awakening. Seasonal variation in symptomatology was also more frequent among the anancastic probands. The same held true for depersonalization. The anancastic probands showed a significant preponderance of anancastic premorbid personality features. A positive correlation was found between the number of anancastic personality features and the following symptoms: agitation, anxiety, diurnal fluctuation, seasonal variation, hypochondriacal attitude and depersonalization. On the other hand, objective retardation or flight of ideas showed a significant negative correlation. The pattern of the anancastic symptoms was rather uniform; aggressive obsessions, mostly in the form of suicidal and homicidal obsessions, were present in more than two thirds of the cases. The anancastic depressions were often less severe than non-anancastic depressions in that the latter were more often complicated by decidedly psychotic symptoms. It is possible to interpret the symptomatology of anancastic depressions as a pathoplastic influence of the anancastic personality, but it cannot be excluded that some of the symptoms like anxiety and agitation are linked to the presence of anancastic symptoms as such.
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PMID:The psychopathology of anancastic endogenous depression. 119 73

Electroodontometry was used to examine the pain threshold and sensation threshold in patients with depersonalization, endogenous depression and in mentally healthy test subjects. The strongest differences in the thresholds were found on the anterior teeth. The patients with depersonalization manifested a considerable rise of the sensation threshold and to an ever greater degree of the pain threshold. In patients suffering from endogenous depression, both thresholds were decreased and coincided almost completely. It is likely that this fact is associated with a relatively higher incidence of the painful syndrome in patients suffering from depression.
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PMID:[Study of pain sensitivity based on the indicators of electro- odontometry in patients with depersonalization and depressive disorders]. 196 7

How should DSM criteria relate to the disorders they are designed to assess? To address this question empirically, the author examines how well DSM-5 symptomatic criteria for major depression capture the descriptions of clinical depression in the post-Kraepelin Western psychiatric tradition as described in textbooks published between 1900 and 1960. Eighteen symptoms and signs of depression were described, 10 of which are covered by the DSM criteria for major depression or melancholia. For two symptoms (mood and cognitive content), DSM criteria are considerably narrower than those described in the textbooks. Five symptoms and signs (changes in volition/motivation, slowing of speech, anxiety, other physical symptoms, and depersonalization/derealization) are not present in the DSM criteria. Compared with the DSM criteria, these authors gave greater emphasis to cognitive, physical, and psychomotor changes, and less to neurovegetative symptoms. These results suggest that important features of major depression are not captured by DSM criteria. This is unproblematic as long as DSM criteria are understood to index rather than constitute psychiatric disorders. However, since DSM-III, our field has moved toward a reification of DSM that implicitly assumes that psychiatric disorders are actually just the DSM criteria. That is, we have taken an index of something for the thing itself. For example, good diagnostic criteria should be succinct and require minimal inference, but some critical clinical phenomena are subtle, difficult to assess, and experienced in widely varying ways. This conceptual error has contributed to the impoverishment of psychopathology and has affected our research, clinical work, and teaching in some undesirable ways.
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PMID:The Phenomenology of Major Depression and the Representativeness and Nature of DSM Criteria. 2827 Apr 55