Decompensation

In medicine, 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, stress, 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.

Medical term

For example, cardiac decompensation may refer to the failure of the heart to maintain adequate blood circulation, after long-standing (previously compensated) vascular disease (see heart failure). Short-term treatment of cardiac decompensation can be achieved through administration of dobutamine, resulting in an increase in heart contractility via an inotropic effect.^[1]

Kidney failure 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.^{[citation needed]}

Some of the signs of chronic liver disease detectable on clinical examination are associated with decompensation.^{[citation needed]}

Psychology

In psychology, the term refers to an individual's loss of healthy defense mechanisms in response to stress, resulting in personality disturbance or psychological imbalance.^[2][3][4]