medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...

, decompensation is the functional deterioration of a structure or system that had been previously working with the help of compensation. Decompensation may occur due to

fatigue Fatigue describes a state of tiredness that does not resolve with rest or sleep. In general usage, fatigue is synonymous with extreme tiredness or exhaustion that normally follows prolonged physical or mental activity. When it does not resolve ...

stress Stress may refer to: Science and medicine * Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition * Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...

, illness, or old age. When a system is "compensated," it is able to function despite stressors or defects. Decompensation describes an inability to compensate for these deficiencies. It is a general term commonly used in medicine to describe a variety of situations.

Physiology

For example, ''cardiac decompensation'' may refer to the failure of the heart to maintain adequate blood circulation, after long-standing (previously compensated)

vascular disease Vascular disease is a class of diseases of the blood vessels – the arteries and veins of the circulatory system of the body. Vascular disease is a subgroup of cardiovascular disease. Disorders in this vast network of blood vessels can cause ...

(see

heart failure Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome, a group of signs and symptoms caused by an impairment of the heart's blood pumping function. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, a ...

). Short-term treatment of cardiac decompensation can be achieved through administration of

dobutamine Dobutamine is a medication used in the treatment of cardiogenic shock (as a result of inadequate tissue perfusion) and severe heart failure. It may also be used in certain types of cardiac stress tests. It is given by IV only, as an injection in ...

, resulting in an increase in heart contractility via an

inotropic An inotrope is an agent that alters the force or energy of muscular contractions. Negatively inotropic agents weaken the force of muscular contractions. Positively inotropic agents increase the strength of muscular contraction. The term ''inotro ...

effect.

Kidney failure Kidney failure, also known as end-stage kidney disease, is a medical condition in which the kidneys can no longer adequately filter waste products from the blood, functioning at less than 15% of normal levels. Kidney failure is classified as eit ...

can also occur following a slow degradation of kidney function due to an underlying untreated illness; the symptoms of the latter can then become much more severe due to the lack of efficient compensation by the kidney.

Psychology

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...

, the term refers to an individual's loss of healthy

defense mechanism In psychoanalytic theory, a defence mechanism (American English: defense mechanism), is an unconscious psychological operation that functions to protect a person from anxiety-producing thoughts and feelings related to internal conflicts and o ...

s in response to

, resulting in personality disturbance or psychological imbalance.

References

External links

Heffner, C.L. (2001). Psychology 101.
{{Use dmy dates, date=March 2017 Psychoanalytic terminology Medical terminology Narcissism Borderline personality disorder