RT Book, Section
A1 Ropper, Allan H.
A1 Samuels, Martin A.
A1 Klein, Joshua P.
A1 Prasad, Sashank
SR Print(0)
ID 1162592925
T1 Fatigue, Asthenia, Anxiety, and Depression
T2 Adams and Victor's Principles of Neurology, 11e
YR 2019
FD 2019
PB McGraw-Hill Education
PP New York, NY
SN 9780071842617
LK accessmedicine.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=1162592925
RD 2024/04/19
AB In  this  chapter,  we  consider  the  clinically  related  phenomena  of  fatigue,  nervousness,  irritability,  anxiety,  and  depression.  These  complaints  form  the  core  of  a  group  of  “symptom-based”  disorders  with  normal  neurologic  findings  that  are  nevertheless  a  large  part  of  medical  practice.  Although  more  abstruse  than  paralysis,  sensory  loss,  seizures,  or  aphasia,  they  are  no  less  important,  if  for  no  other  reason  than  their  frequency.  In  an  audit  of  a  large  neurologic  practice,  anxiety  and  depressive  reactions  were  the  main  diagnosis  in  20  percent  of  patients,  second  only  to  the  symptom  of  headache  (Digon  et  al).  Similarly,  in  two  primary  care  clinics  in  Boston  and  Houston,  fatigue  was  the  prominent  complaint  over  20  percent  of  patients.  Some  of  these  symptoms  represent  only  slight  aberrations  of  function  or  a  heightening  or  exaggeration  of  normal  reactions  to  environmental  stress  or  to  diseases;  others  are  integral  features  of  the  diseases  themselves;  and  still  others  represent  disturbances  of  neuropsychiatric  function  that  are  components  of  the  diseases  described  in  Chaps.  47,  48  and  49  on  psychiatric  diseases  as  viewed  through  the  perspective  of  neurology.