Depression Presenile

Presenile (post-vicarious) depression is an affective disorder characterized by a dominant gloomy or depressed mood, decreased mental activity and interest in the environment, and sleep disturbance; as well as motor retardation, fluctuations in appetite and weight loss. Presenile depression is accompanied by anxiety, irritability, tearfulness, apathy, autonomic disorders, etc. Often, elderly patients have a history of factors predisposing to the development of depression. Progressive weakness, slowness of mental processes, loss of interest in everything around, a tendency to self-accusation reflect the characteristic mechanism of development of presenile depression: “fading”, “impoverishment” of the psyche. The clinical picture of depression is dominated by two phases, due to a fairly rapid change in phases of melancholia (melancholic episode) with a phase of depression (hypotymia, hypothymic-agitated stage), followed by a depressive-paranoid phase. With presenile deep depressive syndrome, Korsakoff's signs, amnestic syndrome, catatonic symptoms, senesto-hypochondriacal disorders, hallucinosis may be observed