An approach to symptoms at the interface of medicine and psychiatry: pain, insomnia, weight loss and anorexia, fatigue and forgetfulness, and sexual dysfunction.
Primary care physicians commonly deal with patients who present with a somatic complaint for which no clear organic etiology can be found. This article discusses how a psychiatrist thinks about somatic symptoms (eg, pain, insomnia, weight loss and loss of appetite, fatigue and forgetfulness, sexual dysfunction) in a patient who might have depression. The management of a patient in whom no satisfactory medical or psychiatric diagnosis can be made is also reviewed briefly.
Freudenreich
Oliver
O
Harvard Medical School, 25 Shattuck Street, Boston, MA 02115, USA. ofreudenreich@partners.org
Kontos
Nicholas
N
Nejad
Shamim H
SH
Gross
Anne F
AF
D000855:Anorexia / Q000209:etiology; D005221:Fatigue / Q000209:etiology; D006801:Humans; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000209:etiology; D010146:Pain / Q000209:etiology; D020018:Sexual Dysfunctions, Psychological / Q000209:etiology; D007319:Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders / Q000209:etiology; D013001:Somatoform Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology / Q000628:therapy*; D015431:Weight Loss