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Objective: to study the efficacy of metaprot in the treatment of neurasthenia. Patients and methods. Thirty patients aged 18 to 45 years with neurasthenia (F48.0) were followed up. The patients were examined using a subjective asthenia rating scale (Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory (MFI-20)), a 10-point anesthesia visual analog scale, Spielberger’s self-report scale modified by Yu.L. Khanin, and a computed Test of Variables of Attention (TOVA). Metaprot was given in a dose of 0.25 g b.i.d. after morning and evening meals as two administrations for 10 days (5 days at a 2-day interval). The results of therapy were assessed on day 30 after its course. Results. There was clinical improvement in 21 (70.0%) patients after metaprot therapy. Evaluation of the patient’s status using the MFI-20 showed a significant improvement in the items of general asthenia, physical asthenia, psychic asthenia, and decreased activity. Psychophysiological examination using the TOVA revealed a significant reduction in response times, as compared to the scores obtained before the treatment, and a decrease in the number of errors in the second half of the test, which allows us to state that there is a reduction in the degree of mental exhaustion and an increase in work capacity after the treatment. Psychological tests showed no significant reduction in anxiety scores. There were no adverse reactions or complications. It has been concluded that it is promising to use metaprot to treat neurasthenia.

Aim: to study clinical manifestation of neurasthenia in adolescents with school disadaptation and to assess efficacy of deanol aceglumate in treatment of this disorder. Patients and methods: 64 adolescents aged from 14 to 17 years with neurasthenia were included into the study. Control group consisted of 64 practically healthy adolescents. Diagnostic methods: subjective scale for asthenia assessment (MFI-20), visual analogue scale for asthenia manifestations assessment (10-points scale), C. D. Spielberger’s state-trait anxiety test, vegetologic examination with A. M. Vein’s questionnaire, psychophysiological investigation with TOVA (Test of Variables of Attention), quantitative electroencephalography. Results: vegetative dysfunction, decrease of attention level and reaction speed, as well as increased level of reactive anxiety (reliably higher than in control group of healthy participants) was revealed. The results of quantitative electroencephalography demonstrated significant decrease of alpha-rhythm spectrum power in occipital leads in comparison with respective characteristic in the control group. The results of clinical and psychological studies, performed after the treatment course, showed high clinical efficacy of deanol aceglumate in this disorder in adolescents (the improvement was achieved in 44 (68,8%) of patients). Conclusions: deanol aceglumate in treatment of asthenic disorders in adolescents with school disadaptation is characterized by high efficacy. Due to absence of its influence on anxiety level, combination of this medicine with nonbenzodiazepine anxiolytics can be suggested to increase the efficacy of the treatment.

Asthenia serves as a symptom of many both organic and mental diseases. 16-64% of patients with this diagnosis visit a polyclinic therapist. Asthenia is an obligate symptom of a number of mental illnesses, including stress-related neurotic disorders, and somatoform disorders (panic attacks, generalized anxiety disorders, somatoform autonomic disorders, adjustment disorders), as well as nonpsychotic petit mal depressions. Patients with these disorders generally see therapists or general practitioners, rather than psychiatrists. The paper reflects the classification, differential diagnosis, and treatment of asthenia. A clinical case is described; its therapy is warranted.

Neurasthenia was used by nineteenth-century American doctors to explain a wide variety of symptoms not satisfactorily covered by existing diseases. It was not a discrete illness, but rather a disease category that attributed a variety of ailments to the nervous system, and proved to be flexible in its scientific applications. This study briefly explains the origins of neurasthenia in the United States before taking an in-depth look at the various methods used to treat nervous disease in the late nineteenth century. Special attention is given to explaining Victorian-era electrical therapy using rare and previously unexamined sources found at the Bakken Museum and Library in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. It also examines neurasthenia in women, focusing on the patients of Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, creator of the rest cure, and the life and practice of Dr. Margaret Cleaves, a prominent female physician who ran the New York Electro- Therapeutic Clinic and Laboratory.

The paper provides a historical analysis of the concept of neurasthenia with emphasis on its psychopathological heterogeneity. It considers predisposing and initiating factors in the genesis of neurasthenia. Particular emphasis is placed on its differential pharmacotherapy, by keeping in mind its predisposing factors. The results of studies confirming the efficacy of Tanakan® in different types of this abnormality are given.

Apresenta a categoria médica da neurastenia, criada em solo estadunidense no fim do século XIX pelo neurologista George Beard. São apresentadas as características gerais do quadro clínico, bem como as principais hipóteses explicativas para os sintomas, e as proposições terapêuticas sugeridas nas obras do referido autor. Além disso, é discutida a recepção do diagnóstico fora dos EUA, tanto no que se refere ao seu uso na Europa quanto ao caso específico do Brasil.The article addresses the medical category of neurasthenia, developed in the United States by neurologist George Beard at the close of the nineteenth century. Points of discussion include the principle features of the category's clinical presentation, the main hypotheses advanced to account for symptoms, and the treatment alternatives suggested in Beard's works. The article also looks at how the diagnosis was received outside the United States, both in Europe and, more specifically, in Brazil.

Analisa alguns dos elementos sociohistóricos que configuraram condições de possibilidade para a emergência da neurastenia como categoria nosológica, na segunda metade do século XIX, bem como os aspectos que influenciaram seu declínio em meios médicos e leigos. Propõe breve apresentação dessa categoria médica e discussão mais detalhada sobre alguns debates em que ela encontra sustentação, tais como a ideia do desgaste do suprimento nervoso, os estudos e as preocupações novecentistas sobre a fadiga e a pressuposição da somatogênese da doença. Analisa, por fim, o processo de declínio da categoria ressaltando alguns elementos que alteraram seu estatuto e sua utilidade como diagnóstico.The article first analyzes some of the social and historical components underlying the conditions of possibility that allowed neurasthenia to emerge as a nosological category in the latter half of the nineteenth century and then explores the elements that influenced its demise in medical and lay circles. It offers a brief introduction to this medical category and a more detailed discussion of some supporting debates, including the idea of nervous exhaustion, twentieth-century studies and concerns on fatigue, and the malady's presumed somatogenesis. The concluding analysis of how the category met its demise highlights elements that altered its status and its diagnostic usefulness.

The root of Oplopanax elatus (Nakai) Nakai has a well-known history of use for the treatment of diseases such as neurasthenia, cardiovascular disorders, and cancer by the native people in northeast China. It is important to screen and identify the bioactive molecules from its root rapidly. Hereby, an off-line two-dimensional high performance liquid chromatography coupled with diode array detection and tandem time-of-flight mass spectrometry together with 2,2ʹ-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl was established to screen antioxidants from the root of O. elatus. A Waters cyanogen column (150 × 3.9 mm, id, 4 μm) was used for the first dimensional liquid chromatography, while a Hypersil BDS-C18 column (250 × 4.6 mm, id, 5 μm) was installed for the second dimension liquid chromatographic analysis. Twenty-eight compounds had been tentatively identified from the methanol extract of the air-dried root of O. elatus including six polyynes and eight phenolic derivatives were screened with antioxidant activity. The developed method could be expedient for screening and identifying antioxidants from O. elatus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Japan, the first half of the twentieth century saw a remarkable revival of concern with the cultivation of the belly, with a variety of belly-cultivation techniques, particularly breathing exercise and meditative sitting, widely practiced for improving health and treating diseases. This article carefully examines some practitioners' experiences of belly-cultivation practice in attempting to understand its healing effects for them within their life histories and contemporary intellectual, social and cultural contexts. It shows that belly-cultivation practice served as a medium for some practitioners to reflect on and retell their life stories, and that the personal charisma of certain masters and the communities developing around them provided practitioners with a valuable sense of belonging in an increasingly industrialized and urbanized society. Moreover, these belly-cultivation techniques provided an embodied way for some to explore and affirm their sense of self and develop individual identity. While they were increasingly promoted as cultural traditions capable of cultivating national character, they also served as healing practices by inspiring practitioners with a sense of collective identity and purpose. With these analyses, this article sheds light on the complicated meanings of belly-cultivation for practitioners, and provides illustrative examples of the multitude of meanings of the body, bodily cultivation and healing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay analyses six case studies of theories of exhaustion-related conditions from the early eighteenth century to the present day. It explores the ways in which George Cheyne, George Beard, Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Sigmund Freud, Alain Ehrenberg and Jonathan Crary use medical ideas about exhaustion as a starting point for more wide-ranging cultural critiques related to specific social and technological transformations. In these accounts, physical and psychological symptoms are associated with particular external developments, which are thus not just construed as pathology-generators but also pathologized. The essay challenges some of the persistently repeated claims about exhaustion and its unhappy relationship with modernity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neurasthenia became a common disease and caused widespread concern in Japan at the turn of the twentieth century, whereas only a couple of decades earlier the term "nerve" had been unfamiliar, if not unknown, to many Japanese. By exploring the theories and practices of breathing exercise-one of the most popular treatments for neurasthenia at the time-this paper attempts to understand how people who practiced breathing exercises for their nervous ills perceived, conceived, and accordingly cared for their nerves. It argues that they understood "nerve" based on their existing conceptions of qi. Neurasthenia was for them a disorder of qi, although the qi had assumed modern appearances as blood and nervous current. The paper hopes to contribute to the understanding of how the concept of nerves has been accepted and assimilated in East Asia. It also points out the need to understand the varied cultures of nerves not only at the level of concept and metaphor, but also at the level of perception and experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes how time was used dynamically by a group of people at risk of losing their lives. It is shown how these people appeared to experience a change in the relationship between inner and outer time and that time literally was felt in this situation. An empirical investigation of 16 cancer patients performing their jobs while going through demanding treatment programs found time as their main motive for working while being seriously ill. Actions at work point to a time ahead, so by taking part in the time at the workplace they were inscribed in a future presently under pressure by their cancer diagnosis. The article describes how cancer-struck women and men perceived time in their different life-worlds, at work, at home on temporary sick leave, and at the hospital, and it shows how these perceptions changed during the process of recovery. To these people, time appeared in three forms: a time beyond control, realizing that they had cancer; taking control of time, discovering that they could go to work; the time of the future, which was their new perception of time as cured. This new perception of time reflected the incidental discovery of the cancer, realizing life as coincidental. Having their life time threatened made them feel vulnerable and liminal (neither sick nor well, but on the way to recovery). This vulnerability can be seen as the result of a breakdown of our taken-for-granted space–time world. For these people, going to work seemed to reduce the unbearable waiting time towards recovery by re-establishing links to a well-known life-world, the workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anxiety and depression are complex heterogeneous psychiatric disorders and leading causes of disability worldwide. This review summarizes reports on the fundamentals, prevalence, diagnosis, neurobiology, advancement in treatment of these diseases and preclinical assessment of botanicals. This review was conducted through bibliographic investigation of scientific journals, books, electronic sources, unpublished theses and electronic medium such as ScienceDirect and PubMed. A number of the first-line drugs (benzodiazepine, azapirone, antidepressant tricyclics, monoamine oxidase inhibitors, serotonin selective reuptake inhibitors, noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors, serotonin and noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors, etc.) for the treatment of these psychiatric disorders are products of serendipitous discoveries. Inspite of the numerous classes of drugs that are available for the treatment of anxiety and depression, full remission has remained elusive. The emerging clinical cases have shown increasing interests among health practitioners and patients in phytomedicine. The development of anxiolytic and antidepressant drugs of plant origin takes advantage of multidisciplinary approach including but not limited to ethnopharmacological survey (careful investigation of folkloric application of medicinal plant), phytochemical and pharmacological studies. The selection of a suitable plant for a pharmacological study is a basic and very important step. Relevant clues to achieving this step include traditional use, chemical composition, toxicity, randomized selection or a combination of several criteria. Medicinal plants have been and continue to be a rich source of biomolecule with therapeutic values for the treatment of anxiety and depression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The high prevalence of neurasthenia and its divergent social and cultural meanings in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has been subjected to historical and anthropological studies. The present study explores the history of this elastic diagnosis in relation to the rise of "psy disciplines" in Republican China. Since the 1920s, emergent Chinese neuropsychiatric and mental health professionals eagerly entered the already vibrant culture of neurasthenia and provided their explanations. As China was under different spheres of influence, diverse systems of psy knowledge were practiced in the country. Differences in the conception of the nature of the disease were further intertwined with various reform projects with which these bodies of psychological knowledge were associated. Despite being the products of scientific internationalism, these discourses not only resonated with the epistemological and social concerns derived from Japan, Europe, and, gradually, the United States but generated their own ideas of personal, social, and national regeneration. By examining the history of neurasthenia in the light of the interactions among popular culture, the advent of modern psychiatric and psychological knowledge, and Republican China's striving for modernity amid social turmoil, the article contributes to our understanding of medical culture in modern China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses a case-study approach to examine the complex and contradictory nature of diagnoses like neurasthenia in colonial Africa. Drawing on the case notes of European and African patients diagnosed with neurasthenia at the Church Missionary Society's Mengo Hospital, Uganda, it argues that in practice, and outside the colonial asylum in particular, ideas about race and mental illness were more nuanced than histories of psychiatry and empire might imply. At Mengo, the tales of pain and suffering recorded by the doctors remind us that there is more to the history of neurasthenia than colonial anxieties and socio-political control. This was a diagnosis that was negotiated in hospital examination rooms as much as in medical journals. Significantly, it was also a diagnosis that was not always reserved exclusively for white colonisers—at Mengo Hospital from the early 1900s neurasthenia was diagnosed in African patients too. It became part of a wider discussion about detribalisation, in which a person's social environment was as important as race. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study examines experiences of individual patients and psychiatrists in the Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic at Johns Hopkins between 1913 and 1917. The dynamics of these patient-psychiatrist interactions elucidate the well-known conceptual shift in explanations of mental illness during the twentieth century, from somatic models rooted in the logic of 'neurasthenia' and damaged nerves to psychodynamic models based on the notion of 'subconscious conflict.' A qualitative analysis of 336 cases categorized as functional disorders (a catchall term in this period for illnesses that could not be confirmed as organic diseases), shows that patients explained their symptoms and suffering in terms of bodily malfunctions, and, particularly, as a 'breakdown' of their nervous apparatus. Psychiatrists at the Phipps Clinic, on the other hand, working under the direction of its prominent director, Adolf Meyer, did not focus their examinations and therapies on the body's nervous system, as patients expected. They theorized that the characteristic symptoms of functional disorders-chronic exhaustion, indigestion, headaches and pain, as well as strange obsessive and compulsive behaviors-resulted from a distinct pathological mechanism: a subconscious conflict between powerful primal and social impulses. Phipps patients were often perplexed when told their physical symptoms were byproducts of an inner psychological struggle; some rejected the notion, while others integrated it with older explanations to reconceptualize their experiences of illness. The new concept also had the potential to alter psychiatrists' perceptions of disorders commonly diagnosed as hysteria, neurasthenia, or psychoneuroses. The Phipps records contain examples of Meyer and his staff transcending the frustration experienced by many doctors who had observed troubling but common behaviors in such cases: morbid introspection, hypochondria, emotionalism, pity-seeking, or malingering. Subconscious conflict recast these behaviors as products of 'self-deception,' which both absolved the sufferer and established an objective clinical marker by which a trained specialist could recognize functional disorder. Using individual case studies to elucidate the disjunction between patients' and psychiatrists' perspectives on what all agreed were debilitating illnesses, this analysis helps to illuminate the origins of a radical transformation in psychiatric knowledge and popular culture in the twentieth century-from somatic to psychodynamic explanations of mental illness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Post-stroke depression (PSD) and post-stroke fatigue (PSF) are frequent and persistent problems among stroke survivors. Therefore, awareness of signs and symptoms of PSD and PSF is important for their treatment and recovery from stroke. Additionally, since sudden serious illness can result in disequilibrium, early institution of a coping process is essential to restoring stability. The brain damage of stroke leaves patients with unique physical and mental dysfunctions for which coping maybe a key resource while rebuilding lives. We evaluated 368 consecutive patients with acute ischemic stroke for post-stroke emotional disorders at admission and 3 months later. PSD was evaluated by using the Beck Depression Inventory, and PSF was scored with the Fatigue Severity Scale. The Social Support Rating Scale and Medical Coping Modes Questionnaire were also used as measurement tools. Locations of lesions were based on MRI. Those scans revealed infarcts located in the basal ganglia, corona radiate and internal capsule and constituted the independent factors associated with PSF 3 months after stroke occurrence. Conversely, PSD was not related to lesion location. Acceptance-resignation related to PSD and PSF both at admission and 3 months after stroke. Avoidance was the independent factor most closely related to PSD, whereas confrontation was the independent factor best related to PSF at 3 months after stroke onset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Methamphetamine (METH) is a psychostimulant and drug of abuse, commonly used early in life, including in childhood and adolescence. Adverse effects include psychosis, anxiety and mood disorders, as well as increased risk of developing a mental disorder later in life. The current study investigated the long-term effects of chronic METH exposure during pre-adolescence in stress-sensitive Flinders Sensitive Line (FSL) rats (genetic model of depression) and control Flinders Resistant Line (FRL) rats. METH or vehicle control was administered twice daily from post-natal day 19 (PostND19) to PostND34, followed by behavioural testing at either PostND35 (early effects) or long-lasting after withdrawal at PostND60 (early adulthood). Animals were evaluated for depressive-like behaviour, locomotor activity, social interaction and object recognition memory. METH reduced depressive-like behaviour in both FSL and FRL rats at PostND35, but enhanced this behaviour at PostND60. METH also reduced locomotor activity on PostND35 in both FSL and FRL rats, but without effect at PostND60. Furthermore, METH significantly lowered social interaction behaviour (staying together) in both FRL and FSL rats at PostND35 and PostND60, whereas self-grooming time was significantly reduced only at PostND35. METH treatment enhanced exploration of the familiar vs. novel object in the novel object recognition test (nORT) in FSL and FRL rats on PostND35 and PostND60, indicative of reduced cognitive performance. Thus, early-life METH exposure induce social and cognitive deficits. Lastly, early-life exposure to METH may result in acute antidepressant-like effects immediately after chronic exposure, whereas long-term effects after withdrawal are depressogenic. Data also supports a role for genetic predisposition as with FSL rats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent art history, the "plastic" is a concept undervalued as a designation for sculpture, or, in perception, as a single sense associated with touch. "Plasticity," as popularized by the neurosciences, is generally understood as an elastic adaptability that evades fixity for flexibility. Current continental philosophy has revisited plasticity for its explosive rather than regenerative capacity to receive and produce form; however, this rethinking has neglected the concept of the plastic in art. Using scholarly comedy to explore accidents of resemblance (pseudomorphisms) and acausal coincidences (synchronicities) among artist-writer Piet Mondrian's "plasticism," art historian Aby Warburg's "plastic art," and artist-humorist Gelett Burgess' plastic figure called "goop," this essay generates insights on the concept of the plastic in art history, artist writings and art practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neurasthenia, though no longer diagnosed today, was an illness that was commonly diagnosed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was an umbrella category that encompassed all manner of somatic and psychosomatic ailments. In order to make this disease more palatable to the American public, Dr. George Miller Beard constructed an economic metaphor, in which people had certain amounts of “nerve-force” that could be saved or spent and, when overspent, could result in “nervous bankruptcy.” My essay analyzes The Diary of Alice James from a disability studies perspective in order to how Alice James uses this economic terminology rhetorically to reclaim her subjectivity, to characterize disability as central to identity, to disrupt the narrative of disability as global incapacity, and to configure pain (rather than illness itself) as work. Keywords: neurasthenia, "rest cure," invalid, discourse, nervous, nerve-force, and "nervous bankruptcy"