A term formerly used to describe an agitated depression in a person of climacteric age. Currently, such patients are not distinguished from depressed patients of other age groups.
An outdated term referring to a depressive psychotic reaction characterized by depression, agitation, and apprehension.
A depression which occurs in people, mainly women, after middle age, probably caused by a change of endocrine secretions.
A severe depression, usually psychotic, appearing for the first time in the involutional period of middle life (approximately 40-55 for women, 50-65 for men). Such an illness classically has characteristic features, including agitation; delusions of ill-health, poverty, sin, and sometimes of the nonexistence of the world; and preoccupations with death and loss. However, the features are not always classical, and many authorities do not regard the condition as a clinical entity separate from depressive psychosis.