decompensate
Americanverb (used without object)
Usage
What does decompensate mean? To decompensate means to lose the ability to maintain one’s state of mental health, typically due to some kind of stress. The word decompensate is most often applied to someone who is having a breakdown in their mental health mechanisms, especially someone who has an existing mental illness or psychological condition. Example: If the patient loses their normal support system, they may decompensate, resulting in an aggravation of their condition.
Etymology
Origin of decompensate
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“I am sick about it that so much time has elapsed and we are seeing children and adolescents decompensate to the point of needing hospitalizations and ICU care in these increasing numbers.”
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 20, 2022
“They have to decompensate further before we can take them,” the paramedic said.
From New York Times ● May 6, 2020
“The ability to continuously remotely monitor” is key, Wright said, because covid-19 patients “can decompensate quickly” and need to be moved to intensive care.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 17, 2020
Would I bet my license that you won’t decompensate if I don’t admit you?
From Slate ● Apr. 15, 2020
Are you so sugar deprived the rest of the year that you have to decompensate by adding more sugar to your dessert?
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 15, 2014
A combination of dehydration, rapid weight loss and malnutrition, complicated by untreated decompensated schizophrenia led to a fatal cardiac arrythmia, the report says.
From Seattle Times ● May 22, 2023
Marilynn, a mother of a man formerly incarcerated in the King County Jail this year who was recently discharged from a psychiatric hospital, said she felt helpless and afraid as her son decompensated in jail.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 28, 2022
He decompensated radically because he was very isolated out there on that farm.
From Salon ● Aug. 27, 2019
In the REALX-AHF trial, 1,161 patients were randomized to serelaxin or placebo in the first hours of acute decompensated heart failure.
From Forbes ● Nov. 7, 2012
This is also true in cases of compensated cardiac lesions, but it was not true in decompensated hearts.
From Disturbances of the Heart by Oliver T. (Oliver Thomas) Osborne
“Play It as It Lays” appeared in 1970; the story of an actor, Maria Wyeth, who is in the process of decompensating, it is regarded as Didion’s “Hollywood” book.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 12, 2023
And his turn as Armond, the decompensating manager of a luxury resort in “The White Lotus” solidified his one-to-watch status, just as he approached 50.
From New York Times ● Dec. 10, 2021
In essence, it was a lot of people who seemed to be psychologically decompensating or in the midst of an emotional breakdown.
From Salon ● Nov. 8, 2021
Or they must have a grave disability and be decompensating: They stop eating or taking care of themselves or their home.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 6, 2021
He found such a condition present In seventy- one out of 300 patients examined, and he believes that if every decompensating heart with arrhythmia was graphically examined, this condition would be frequently found.
From Disturbances of the Heart by Oliver T. (Oliver Thomas) Osborne
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
