Agitated State

Agitated state, characterized by motor agitation, in which lies the feeling of intense anxiety, unbearable mental anguish, not allowing one to remain at rest and forcing one to pace back and forth, to cry, to groan, to attack others, and to inflict injuries upon oneself. In its most acute form, agitated state can be observed during specific pathological attacks and anxious agitation, so-called raptus melancholicus, in agitated melancholia, especially in late age. Agitated state occurs either in a subacute form or persists for a longer time. It is usually accompanied by a sharp distressing sensation throughout the body, particularly in the region of the heart, in the epigastric region, and in the chest as a whole without more precise localization. Patients at the same time experience a sensation of compression, suction. Especially distressing is sometimes the feeling of precordial anxiety (anxietas praecordialis). At this time, objective phenomena are also noted: acceleration or slowing of the pulse, narrowing of blood vessels, increase in blood pressure, generally most often phenomena characteristic of vagotonia. Agitated state of a somewhat different type and with a different mechanism of development occurs in paralysis of the insane (agitated paralysis) and in psychopaths as a reaction to external factors, for example, to mental irritations or the consumption of alcohol.