The features of vegetative and emotional disorders at chronization of duodenal ulcer

Abstract

Traditionally, duodenal ulcer is referred to the psychosomatic disorders. Not by accident, in the classic investigations of the founder of the stress theory, Canadian scientist R. Selye, acute gastric ulcer serves as a model of somatic expression of stress, and the followers of the ideas of neurism I. P. Pavlov, physiologists K. M. Bykov and I. T. Kurcin used peptic ulcer also as an illustration of the role of cortico-visceral relationships in the genesis of somatic diseases. A big number of papers have been published over the past decade, devoted to the role of psycho-emotional and vegetative disorders in the development of peptic ulcer. The investigation involved 62 patients (23 women and 39 men) with duodenal ulcer, aged from 18 to 42 years. The state of vegetative nervous systems was investigated by common scheme with analysis of initial vegetative tonus. Besides, the presence and degree of the syndrome of vegetative dystonia was analyzed with the use of unified questionnaires and schemes. The obtained data showed that one of the mechanisms of the duodenal ulcer chronization is the formation of dissociation between vegetative and emotional disorders, in which the increased anxiety is combined with vegetative parasympaticotonia and lack of vegetative activity support. From the practical standpoint, these data give the ground for the obligatory use in the peptic ulcer treatment schemes of tranquilizers and antidepressants, and in case of chronic course — of vegetotropic agents with tonic effects.