Agitation

Description:

Agitation (Latin agitatio — starting) — the strong contagious excitation accompanied with feeling of alarm and fear and passing into motive concern, the need for the movement, or the speech concern which are often not realized. The person in such state becomes extremely fussy, capable to perform only the simple automated operations. It has a feeling of emptiness and lack of thoughts, an opportunity to argue, establish difficult causal relationships between the phenomena is broken.

Agitation symptoms:

This state is followed by vegetative disturbances: there is a pallor, hurried breathing, heartbeat, perspiration, trembling of hands, etc. Agitation is estimated as premorbid condition in limits of psychological norm.

Agitation reasons:

Agitation is observed at the affective tension caused by a severe stress and also at many mental diseases (for example the catatonic schizophrenia, alarming neurosis agitated or an involutional depression). Also agitation can arise at alcoholic and drug intoxication.

Agitation treatment:

At treatment by neuroleptics agitation needs to be differentiated carefully from an akathisia — the side effect of antipsychotic drugs similar to agitation on clinical manifestations. Incorrect diagnosis of an akathisia as agitations can lead to increase in a dose of a neuroleptic as a result of which the akathisia is aggravated.