Abstract
During 1975-76,22 cases were diagnosed as depression in our clinic (ENT), and they were treated with the aid of psychiatrists. Their chief complaints were tinnitus, headache, lump in throat, dizziness, stuffy nose, dysphsgia and voice disturbance, although they had manu other physical complaints, that is, sleep disturbance, appetite loss, weight loss, weakness and fatigue, sexual disturbances, etc. The diagnostic criteria was abnormal mental state of depression considering these physical complaints. Detailed physical examinations were performed on these patients to investigate whether these complaints depended on organic disease or the depressive state. The results were summarized as follows. 1) Thirteen cases had organic diseases closely related to their complaints ; 9 cases with auditory disturbance, 2 cases with chronic sinusitis, a case with hypertrophic rhinitis, and a case with cicatricial esophageal stenosis. However, exept for a case of esophageal stenosis which was the result of acid-agent ingestion commit suicide, their symptoms have been improved without any organic change after antidepressive treatments. Observation on these patients have lead us to think that they did pay attention to the organic diseases to the organic diseases when they were in a normal mental state, but they complained of physical symptoms in an exaggerated manner when they were in a depressive state. 2) In 9 cases, no organic disorder related to their symptoms was found. Thus it should be considered that their symptoms were evoked by depressive illiness itself. It should be emphasized that detailed history taking and precise examination on mental state are of essential impoetance for detection of depressive patients even when they had organic diseases, becaouse symptoms of these patients depended on both mental and physical states.
