Depression Masked

Masked depression is a term that refers to mental depression, but with minimal, hidden symptoms. This disorder can be difficult to recognize because the patient shows only minimal symptoms of the disease, such as lack of energy, poor appetite, fatigue, chronic pain and suicidal thoughts. People suffering from this disorder may be so overwhelmed by their emotions that they cannot find themselves.

Masked depression (masked depression, larvated syndromes) is a hidden, pseudosomatic form of affective psychosis, characterized by relatively rare episodes of bad mood, irritability, gloominess, increased fatigue and decreased performance with very limited and seemingly unstable somatic symptoms, noted by the patient mostly episodically and the height of the “surges” of affective inadequacy. There are several types of masked depression - eretiform (hyperesthetic), hyperkinetic, asthenic, etc. Asthenic depression (depressive asthenia, dysthymic-asthenic depression) is manifested by lethargy, exhaustion, drowsiness, decreased motivation and initiative, pessimism and a feeling of fear, "physical weakness" (“arms and legs feel like cotton wool,” the inability to lift anything heavy, poor concentration, the patient complains of headaches, trembling in the arms and legs, attacks of dizziness, nausea, chilliness, etc.) All these phenomena are almost lack of will, as well as weakness of the muscles of the limbs and the whole body. Only with short-term affectively sharpened expression is lethargy (stupor, lethargy, depression) detected. Demonstrations of passive suffering, a state of nervous exhaustion. Typical depression in the form of neurosis-like reactions, vegetative-vascular, endocrine-metabolic and gastrointestinal disorders, as well as conversion (hysterical) and somatoform disorders (autonomic dysfunction syndrome). Neuroleptic drugs and antidepressants are ineffective.