Depression: symptoms, treatment, depression test

This term has spread widely in daily life. It has become one of the linguistic expressions that young people and adults, male and female, repeat in all societies at all levels of cultural and educational levels. Thus, depression has become a linguistic term that its users mean: a state of frustration, sadness or irritability.

Depression cases constitute 30% of primary health care patients. It was found that women are more likely to be infected, with an infection rate of 4 - 8%, while men are infected with

4.2%.

What is depression and how do we treat depression, all of this we will answer in this article

What is depression

Depression is a serious mental health condition that impacts the lives of millions of people worldwide. The word “depression” comes from the Latin “depressio” which means deep sadness or sorrow.

While there are multiple causes of depression, some patterns have been identified in individuals who are more likely to develop this disorder.

Individuals who have a genetic predisposition to depression, have a shortened temperamental reaction to negative stimuli and have excessively low levels of serotonin usually develop this condition. While some individuals may deny their condition and refuse treatment for depression, there are several effective treatments for this illness.

Symptoms of depression

Depression should never be ignored because it can lead to fatal outcomes such as suicide if left untreated affecting every part of a person's mood, behavior, thought process, and ability to function on a daily basis without the help of other emotions such as undermining anxiety or loneliness and rational thought processes.

Therefore, people suffering from depression need mental counseling and physical therapy for both brain and body health simultaneously. So that they can heal emotionally before physical illnesses appear on their way to addiction.

But before this, here are the most important signs of depression that affect the patient:

Mood disorder, which usually ranges from simple sadness and a strong sense of guilt accompanied by despair, to extreme misery and lack of value in front of oneself.

Difficulty thinking and inability to concentrate

Inability to make decisions even in easy matters.

Indifference and loss of interest in life or functional matters.

Decreased level of activity and job performance,

Stay away from recreational activities

Loss of appetite and loss of sexual desire.

Sleep disturbance and early morning awakening (slightly after midnight).

Thinking of self-harm.

Depression causes

There is a combination of environmental, psychological and genetic factors that can cause depression, and severe cases of depression are often associated with changes in the brain. The brain controls all human activities, and it controls the way the body moves, the way we speak and comprehend, and it controls feelings and emotions. Brain cells, known as torons or neurons, communicate with each other using special chemical compounds called neurotransmitters.

Depressed patients suffer from disturbances in the work of neurotransmitters. Since the brain controls the whole body, depressed patients may feel headaches and pains that cannot be linked to any other problem.

Depression usually begins after a recognizable personal problem, but some people develop depression without a purely known cause. Depression tends to run in some families. It is often a genetic disease. A person may be prone to depression if the parents and grandparents of that person have been depressed.

Alcohol and drug abuse can lead to depression, since alcohol and drugs affect neurotransmitters in the brain. To recover from depression, it is necessary for the patient to avoid alcohol and drugs. Some medications, especially blood pressure-reducing drugs, may lead to a chemical disorder in the brain and depression . In this case, stopping these medications may be sufficient to treat depression, but the patient should not stop taking any medication without consulting his doctor first.

Only a doctor can diagnose depression, and the diagnosis includes examining the patient with a clinical examination, taking a complete medical history of symptoms, and performing a mental state test.

Who are the people at risk of depression?

Those who are exposed to stressful and painful accidents, and lose their ability to cope: as a loss loved one, or lost a job, and they are exposed to what is known as a depressive reaction.

Those who suffer from other psychological disorders: such as anxiety, or obsessive-compulsive disorder, as well as Those who suffer from addiction of all kinds.

Those who have family members with depression, either for genetic or environmental reasons.

Some people with hypothyroidism, or women with hormonal disorders.

Depression may affect normal people, and there is no reason in their lives to explain the injury Depressed, this is known as internal depression.

depression affects some people with seasonal affective disorder, and these people Depression recurs in the winter, and some of them explained this by the occurrence of depression as a result of the low level of light, and it was noticed that these patients improved upon entering the spring or when they were treated with ultraviolet rays (which are the rays present in sunlight).

Depression test ( Depression diagnosis )

The diagnosis depends on the clinical symptoms that the patient complains of, and there are no laboratory tests that can be used, but several questionnaire forms have been developed that include the questions that the therapist usually asks, including the following diagnostic form: Answer yes or no:

Do you feel sad most of the time?
Do you no longer enjoy things as you used to?
Have you ever felt very depressed and contemplated suicide?
Did you feel that you are of no use or importance and no one needs you?
Do you suffer from insomnia all night long?
Have you lost a lot of weight?
Do you move a lot and can't calm down?
Is your mind not as clear as it used to be?
Do you feel tired for no reason?
Do you feel hopeless about the future?

If you answered yes to the first and second questions (and the symptoms were for more than two weeks) you may be suffering from depression, but if you answered yes to the third question, see a doctor immediately, and if you answered yes to two of the questions 4-10, you may suffer from slight depression.

types of depression

manic disorder

Depressive disorder These two disorders are called unipolar, or unipolar.

bipolar depression

There are several subtypes of depressive disorder, including:

Simple depression.
severe depression;
Very severe depression.
raging depression
Neurotic reactive depression.

depression treatment ( therapy for depression )

1- antidepressant drugs:

Medications that block serotonin reuptake are optional (SSRI)

This is a newer class of antidepressants, and it works by delaying (or blocking) the re-release of the neurotransmitter known as serotonin, thereby increasing its concentration in neurotransmission. The most important characteristic of it is that it does not cause side effects in the cardiovascular system, does not cause anti-acetylcholine symptoms, and does not cause weight gain. These medications, like other antidepressants, need two weeks to take effect. And it is not without side effects, it may cause delayed ejaculation, lack of sexual desire, retrograde ejaculation, and others.

Mono Amino Oxidase

Inhibitors These medicines are considered one of the old treatments for depression, and they have lost their popularity and their prescription is limited to psychiatrists, because they may lead to a high risk of blood pressure if the patient takes foods containing tyramine with them: such as pickles, cheese, and red wine.

Heterocyclic antidepressants

Among the most famous of its compounds are the medicines known as the tricyclic, which contains many pharmaceutical compounds, and increases two neurotransmitters, noradrenaline and serotonin.

These drugs became popular in the 1960s. Their use has decreased after the spread of optional serotonin reuptake inhibitors, but they have the same effectiveness and are less expensive, and perhaps the most famous side effects are: dry mouth, blurred vision, and difficulty urinating.

2- Electroconvulsive therapy:

Electric shocks are used to treat many severe mental disorders and diseases such as schizophrenia and major depression, and it works by a completely unknown mechanism, but it may provoke reactions of neurotransmitters on the surface of nerve cells.

The electrical waves cause convulsions in the central nervous system (not from the peripheral nervous system), and it is necessary that the current be sufficient to cause these convulsions in order to guarantee the clinical benefit from them. As for the most side effects of these shocks, they are temporary memory loss and headache.

3- Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy works to increase self-confidence, assume life responsibilities, get rid of the pessimistic view, and replace it with an optimistic view, and a psychologist usually performs this type of clinical treatment.

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