Review Article
Dysthymia and Apathy: Diagnosis and Treatment
Table 1
Diagnostic criteria for apathy.
| Lack of motivation relative to the patient’s previous level of functioning or the standards of his or her age and culture, | as indicated either by subjective account or observation by others. Presence, with lack of motivation, of at least one | symptom belonging to each of the following three domains. | (i) Diminished goal-directed behavior: | (a) lack of effort, | (b) dependency on others to structure activity. | (ii) Diminished goal-directed cognition: | (a) lack of interest in learning new things or in new experiences, | (b) lack of concern about one’s personal problems. | (iii) Diminished emotion: | (a) unchanging affect, | (b) lack of emotional responsivity to positive or negative events. | The symptoms cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of | functioning. The symptoms are not due to a diminished level of consciousness or the direct physiological effects of a | substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, a medication). |
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Adapted from Starkstein [30].
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