Abstract
As masked depression (MD) and the climacteric syndrome manifest closely interrelated symptoms, it is difficult to make a clinical differentiation between these disease, especially when climacteric, psychosomatic disorders are involved. This inverstigation was concerned with a clinical evaluation of the symptomatology of MD in comparison with a parallel study of the climacteric syndrome of PSD type. Our results revealed the following characteristics in the MD patients, which we think may be of value in making the differential diagnosis of these two problems. First, in the MD patients, complaints included depression, inability to function adequately and a high degree of nonspecific anxiety. These strictly psychological complaints were highly prominent. The somatic complaints inclused marked fatigue sensations in the morning and varying degree of insomnia at night. Furhermore, these patients manifested diurnal variations, in which their condition was most severe in the morning with progressive improvement toward the evening. Among the various evaluation tests, the MD score are significantly higher in patients with MD. Logginess and headache were prevalent in both MD and the climacteric syndrome of PSD type, with an incidence of 80% and 95% respectively. Thus the checking of these symptoms seemed questionable in making the differential diagnosis.
