Mood disturbances

Abstract

Mood or affective disturbances are common expressions of mental and systemic diseases. We distinguish normative emotions such as grief, sadness, joy, anger, and fear from their elaboration into depressive, manic, and mixed syndromes in unipolar and bipolar disorders. We then differentiate normative anxiety disorders from depressive illness along clinical and biologic parameters. The differential diagnosis of mood disorders from dementia and schizophrenia is taken up next in terms of natural history and biology. In-depth descriptions of the signs and symptoms of mood disorders are covered under emotional, cognitive, psychomotor, and vegetative subheadings. We finally give coverage to the chronic and subthreshold mood disorders, including dysthymia and cyclothymia. Knowledge of the psychopathology of mood disorders and their variants is of immense public health significance in light of their consequences in educational, conjugal, vocational, and physical health areas, and, more seriously, in their potential for suicidality. © 2008 Humana Press, a part of Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.