What is involution melancholia?

Involutional melancholia or involutional depression is a traditional name for a psychiatric disorder affecting mainly elderly or late middle-aged people, usually accompanied with paranoia.

Is melancholia a form of depression?

Melancholia has a history that reaches back to Hippocratic times. Its modern meaning was established based on Kraepelin’s manic-depressive illness. Depression is a deepened or prolonged sadness in everyday life, but melancholia has a distinct quality of mood that cannot be interpreted as severe depression.

Is melancholy the same as melancholia?

Melancholy is a type of extreme depression that makes people lose interest in almost all activities. Melancholy or melancholia is a severe form of depression and it is now termed “melancholic depression.” The word “melancholia” is a Greek word to describe the feeling of intense sadness and hopelessness.

What is Involutional psychosis?

Involutional psychosis is a psychosis occurring in middle life and the following years, without evidence of either “organic” intellectual defects or a previous affective disorder.

What does Involutional mean?

(Entry 1 of 2) 1 : of or relating to involutional melancholia involutional depression. 2 : of or relating to the climacterium and its associated bodily and mental changes the involutional time of life.

What are the traits of a melancholy?

Melancholic individuals tend to be analytical and detail-oriented, and they are deep thinkers and feelers. They are introverted and try to avoid being singled out in a crowd. A melancholic personality leads to self-reliant individuals who are thoughtful, reserved, and often anxious.

Is there a cure for melancholy?

Although melancholia can be difficult to treat, recovery is possible. A trained mental health professional can help people with melancholia cope with their symptoms.

What is Involutional depression mean?

: agitated depression occurring at about the time of menopause or andropause that was formerly considered a distinct disorder but is now subsumed under major depressive disorder.

What does Involutional change mean?

As some people age, the folded brain tissue starts to shrink, making the spaces between the folds (the sulci) deeper and wider. These are called involutional brain changes. In many people with dementia, the folds are greatly shrunken. The involutional changes described in your father’s report are milder.

Which is the best treatment for Involutional melancholia?

Treatments. Involutional melancholia is classically treated with antidepressants and mood elevators. Electroconvulsive therapy may also be used. Mid-century, there was a consensus that the technique indeed ‘yields the best results in the long-lasting depressions of the change of life, the so-called “involutional melancholias”,…

What are the signs and symptoms of involutional melancholy?

Involutional melancholy’s ‘course was chronic, with agitation, depersonalization and delusions of bodily change and guilt’ featuring strongly, but ‘without manic features’. Symptoms of fear are also considered to occur, as well as despondency and hypochondriacal delusions.

Who was the first person to describe involutional melancholia?

Emil Kraepelin (1907) was the first to describe involutional melancholia as a distinct clinical entity separate from the manic-depressive psychosis, arguing that ‘the processes of involution in the body are suited to engender mournful or anxious moodiness’.