Psychovegetative syndrome: challenges in diagnosis and effective treatment

Abstract

Autonomic dysfunction syndrome (ADS) includes the somatic (autonomic) function disorders of various origin and manifestations caused by their neurogenic regulation disorder. When establishing the diagnosis of ADS, the doctor most often implies psychovegetative syndrome (PVS), which is discussed in this article. Despite the fact that the ADS is not an independent nosological unit, most doctors use this term to provide the syndromic description of psychogenic polysystemic autonomic disorders. The ADS is mostly caused by mental disturbances of anxiety or anxiety-depressive nature within the neurotic, stress-related disorders, less often by an endogenous disease. The article describes the features of the ADS clinic picture, and focuses on hyperventilation syndrome. It discusses a clinical case of a patient with ADS (with florid hyperventilation syndrome), who was treated ineffectively with antidepressants. The authors also describe options for treating patients with ADS using a neuroleptic agent ziprasidone.