Depression
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General Information
DEFINITION -- A continuing feeling of sadness, despondency or hopelessness with accompanying symptoms. Major depression occurs in about 1 in 10 Americans but there is continued improvement in treatment.
BODY PARTS INVOLVED -- Nervous system.
SEX OR AGE MOST AFFECTED -- Both...
How to tell if you are depressed
Diagnosing depression involves a good medical examination, including a complete history of current and previous symptoms, questions about illnesses of other family members and about your mood, memory, and changes in relationships.
How to tell if someone else is...
Many experts believe that clinical depression is one of the most important health issues facing women of all ages today -- from teenagers to women who have passed their menopause.
The rates for a major depressive episode are two to three times higher for women than for men in almost all of the...
Drug names
Medications have two different names: a generic name and a brand name. The generic name is the chemical name while their brand name is a name given by the drug company that manufactures and sells them. A medication has only one generic name but can have many brand names -- a different...
Light therapy (or phototherapy) is an effective treatment for the winter-onset form of seasonal affective disorder (SAD). During treatment sessions the person with SAD sits in a room containing a 10,000-lux light box. The light is aimed down toward her or his head, initially just for 10 to 15...
Psychotherapy or "talk" therapy can be provided as a short-term form of psychological counseling. Psychotherapy usually can be effective in 24 sessions or less.
Psychotherapy alone (without the use of antidepressants) helps about one out of every two people who have mild to moderate depression. It...
Electroconvulsive therapy, more commonly known as "ECT," is a medical treatment performed only by highly skilled health professionals -- including doctors and nurses -- under the direct supervision of a psychiatrist, who is a medical doctor trained in diagnosing and treating mental illnesses.
Its...
While psychotherapy and antidepressants can be effective treatments for depression, there are steps you can take on your own to keep depressive episodes at a minimum, or better cope when they hit.
Get exercise
Medical studies have shown that exercise is an inexpensive and effective supplemental...
THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS WERE ANSWERED BY DR. ARNOLD LIEBER.
Major depression is a common malady. Twenty percent or more of the population can expect to have at least one bout of depression in their lifetime. It is a disorder that is widely unrecognized, undiagnosed, untreated, and stigmatized. Depression is often trivialized, seen as a sign of "weakness"...
How long a person takes antidepressants or lithium depends on the nature of that individual's illness.
In general, people with severe, frequent, or prolonged bouts of depression (in the form of major depression or the depressed side of bipolar disorder) will require prolonged maintenance medication...
Genetic factors play an important role in major depression and bipolar disorder. These are illnesses in which familial patterns are often apparent, particularly in bipolar disorder, where a first-degree relative (a child) has an approximately 25 percent chance of having the disorder if one parent...
People who are depressed generally know that something is wrong, even frighteningly wrong. But sometimes they and those around them do not identify their problem as depression. Out of lack of awareness of what depression consists of or an aversion to admitting a mental or emotional illness, they...
In bipolar disorder (or manic depressive disorder), as in major depressive disorder, there is a basic disturbance in the background emotional tone we call mood. Unlike people with major depression (or unipolar disorder), bipolar patients have a variable pattern of depressed and manic episodes....
Depressed people often have suicidal thoughts. They see no end to their anguish; they can't believe in a happy outcome; and they sometimes think they don't deserve to live or their families would be better off without them. As many as 10 to 15 percent of depressed patients commit suicide. Some 50...