Symptoms of a nervous breakdown
Nervous breakdown is a colloquial, household, generally popular, non-medical and non-clinical term. Nervous breakdowns can happen to anyone on the basis of severe stress and at the heart of them lie neurosis - a person's inability to adapt in life.
Neuroses - a group of diseases, which are based on temporary reversible mental disorders of a functional nature, due to overstrain of the main nervous processes - excitation and inhibition. They arise in the conditions of a long traumatic situation and belong to psychogenics. More details about neuroses look here.
Hysterical neurosis is characterized by increased affective lability and suggestibility, a tendency to imitate, a penchant for fantasy, behavior with elements of theatricality. Some patients react to troubles with hysterical fits of hysterical narrowing of consciousness, sobbing, pathetic. Hysterical seizures are not accompanied by a sudden sudden fall with bruises and injuries, do not occur when the patient is alone. Movement disorders are expressive and correspond to the content of the patient's experiences. Sometimes they have the character of violent manifestations of affect. The patient falls, randomly swings his arms and legs, hits them on the floor, arches with an arch, screams out individual words. The duration of a hysterical fit is from a few minutes to several hours. Hysterical seizure, unlike epileptic, is not accompanied by a marked violation of muscle tone, spasm of sphincters, followed by their relaxation and incontinence of urine and feces;in patients the pupils' reaction to light persists, tendon reflexes can be caused, as well as a reaction to pain stimulation, patients perceive treatment and react to it. After a hysterical fit, the patients still have a vague memory of what happened.
One of the manifestations of hysteria is a disorder of consciousness, which also arises under the influence of a mental trauma. The perception of the environment is distorted. The situation seems gloomy, menacing, it reflects the situation that is traumatic for the patient. Affective disorders are characterized by anxiety, fear. In the behavior there are traits of childishness, helplessness, elements of false dementia - pseudodementia. Some patients develop neurological disorders: a decrease in sensitivity by the type of stockings and gloves, trembling hands and feet, astasia-abasia, hysterical deafness, aphonia. There are vegetative disorders - palpitation, dyspnea, severe vascular reactions. Hysterical neurosis ends after the disappearance of a mentally traumatic situation.
Neurasthenia arises as a result of exhaustion of the nervous system in conditions of a long traumatic situation. It is characterized by asthenia, irritability, weakness, decreased efficiency, sleep disturbance. There is a subjective sense of memory disorder. Develop vegetative disorders: increased sweating, palpitation, dyspnea.
The obsessive-compulsive disorder is characterized by obsessive fears, perceptions, obsessive doubts and actions, a tendency to self-analysis, self-doubt, indecisiveness, increased sensitivity and vulnerability. Patients may develop obsessive fears of hypochondriacal content( fear of death, fear of possible cardiac arrest).Sometimes the fear of heights develops, the fear of getting under transportation( sometimes after a car accident).Often obsessive fears are combined with obsessive actions( an obsessive account, an obsessive change of objects).Patients are critical of these phenomena, they are trying to overcome them. The course is longer than with neurasthenia and hysterical neurosis.
Neurotic depression manifests itself in a depressed, sometimes dreary mood with a certain slowing of psychomotor reactions and thinking, monotonous depressive content with memories, pessimistic views of the future, fixedness in a traumatic situation. It is accompanied by a tendency to tear, irritability, sensitivity, decreased appetite and sleep disturbance. Delusional ideas of self-blame, vital disorders, severe psychomotor inhibition or agitation, as well as diurnal fluctuations in the state are not noted;neurotic depression does not reach the depth of psychosis, is reversible, passes when solving a traumatic situation or under the influence of treatment.
Hypochondriacal neurosis is characterized by increased attention to one's health, one's sensations, and a fear of having an incurable disease. Sometimes it is due to careless observation of a doctor or medical personnel about the patient's state of health( iatrogeny).Accompanied by anxiety, sleep disturbances and vegetative manifestations: palpitations, rapid breathing, bowel dysfunction. It has a reversible character, like all neuroses.
Treatment of neuroses: elimination of a potentially traumatic situation, or mitigating the patient's response to this situation. The hospitalization of patients in the sanatorium departments of psycho-neurological hospitals is shown. Disabling the patient from a traumatic situation( family troubles, conflict at work) has a beneficial effect. The treatment regimen, restorative treatment also favorably affects the patient. In a number of cases, the treatment of neuroses is performed on an outpatient basis. The use of tranquilizers and psychotherapy is shown. Tranquilizers - diazepam, chlordiazepoxide, trioxazine, rudotel, etc. - relieve anxiety, reduce sensitivity to external irritants, cause sedation and muscle relaxation, improve sleep.
Appointed as a course treatment;Over time, one tranquilizer is replaced with another to avoid addiction.
Against the background of mitigation of neurotic symptoms, psychotherapy is conducted: