Depression is a disease that is widespread today. It appears in people belonging to different age categories. A person suffering from depression needs to be monitored by a specialist.
What is characterized by the disease?
Clinical depression is a pathology that affects people of all ages and physical health. In adolescents, it occurs frequently and often provokes suicide.
The symptoms of this disease are characterized by a significant decrease in mood, loss of interest in work, communication, hobbies, memory impairment and attention. Signs of clinical depression are not limited to a suppressed emotional state.
Symptoms of the disease include much more serious disorders that lead to social maladaptation.
Another sign of clinical depression is a major emotional upset. This condition is characterized, in general, by a decline in physical and mental strength. Sometimes the disease can occur in waves. In this case, the patient’s mood is sometimes reduced or normal for a day or a longer period of time. Specialists can diagnose clinical depression in a person if his physical and mental condition is characterized by the preservation of certain pathological manifestations for fourteen days.
The main causes of the disease
What factors can provoke this pathology? Among the causes of clinical depression are the following:
- Loss of a loved one or relative (due to separation or his death).
- Dismissal.
- Change of scenery (moving to another city, moving to another school, a new job, and so on).
- A person’s rejection of the foundations that exist in society.
- Loneliness.
- Constant physical and mental strain.
- Undivided love.
- Complications during childbearing and delivery.
- Taking hormonal drugs.
- Chemotherapy.
- The abuse of alcohol, drugs.
- Cerebrovascular accidents, head injuries.
- Severe somatic pathology.
What personal qualities and external factors contribute to the development of the disease?
Low mood and other clinical manifestations of depression often appear in individuals who have low or high self-esteem. They are constantly worried about their future and the fate of loved ones. Clinically depressed patients are generally uncommunicative individuals. They did not receive the love of relatives, the attention of their peers and friends. A decreased mood may appear in a person who is experiencing certain difficulties at work.
Children who have been physically and emotionally abused are prone to clinical depression during adolescence and adulthood. Symptoms of this disorder may occur in those in whose life a significant event has occurred. It can be either sad (loss of a job, falling level of material well-being, parting with a loved one), or joyful (marriage, the birth of a child).
Both sad and happy events are a stress factor, and stress, as you know, provokes depression.
Internal factors causing the disease
Clinical depression occurs with improper production of hormones in the body. Such phenomena occur during the period of bearing a child and breastfeeding, with premenstrual syndrome, monthly bleeding, as well as in the menopause. Depression can also be caused by a genetic predisposition. If someone in a relative had a relative with this disease, this person has a high probability of developing pathology.
Depression can be triggered by taking drugs acting on the central nervous system, or by stopping their use. Alcoholic beverages, coffee, desserts, and pastries all contribute to brain processes that cause symptoms of the disease. Therefore, these products should be consumed in moderation.
Clinical Depression in Women and Men
Representatives of the fair sex, such a disease occurs much more often than in the strong half of humanity. And this is mainly due to hormonal imbalance. Indeed, during puberty, bearing a child, breastfeeding, menstruation, menopause, the production of important substances for the body is sometimes disrupted. Although clinical depression is more severe in men, symptoms are more common in women.
But the representatives of the stronger sex with this disease are more prone to suicide. This is due to the fact that women with symptoms of depression love to consume large amounts of food containing the “hormone of joy”. Men prefer to drink or take drugs, which only worsen the situation.
Symptoms of Clinical Depression
The disease occurs due to a malfunction of the brain. How strongly the signs of clinical depression are manifested is determined by how serious the pathology of a particular patient is and what are his character traits. What are the symptoms of this disease? Clinical depression is characterized by the following mental manifestations:
- The loss of emotion.
- A feeling of remoteness from others, loneliness.
- Lack of hobbies, hobbies.
- What used to interest and delight the patient now makes him bored.
- Unreasonable depression, tears.
- Low self esteem.
- Loss of the patient's sense of existence.
- Anxiety.
- Thoughts of suicide.
- Feeling of own uselessness.
- Decreased attention span.
- Inappropriate behavior.
- Deterioration of memory, attention.
- Unsociality.
Somatic symptoms include the following:
- Loss of appetite.
- Insomnia or increased drowsiness.
- Lethargy.
- Headache.
Diagnosis of the disorder
What type of depression is called clinical depression? In modern psychiatry, such a diagnosis is made to patients in whom the previously described symptoms appear within two or more weeks. It is also necessary to remember that clinical depression is not just a reduced mood or fatigue. Such a disease involves a permanent deterioration in the patient's well-being. He cannot find the strength to eat, go out, engage in any activity, communicate. With a serious form of this pathology, thoughts of suicide, delusions may appear.
Clinical depression is often found in patients with other mental disorders. In the diagnosis of pathology, special attention is paid to laboratory analysis of blood. This study aims to measure the level of the “hormone of joy”. It is believed that with a lack of it, people experience depression.
Since this disease is a mental disorder, a person who has discovered these symptoms should seek the help of a psychotherapist. Only a specialist can assess the condition of the patient, correctly diagnose and prescribe adequate treatment.
Therapy
A patient with clinical depression should only take drugs under the supervision of a psychotherapist.
If a person is self-medicating, this can only worsen the situation. Therapy for this disease involves taking the following medications:
- Drugs for depression (help fight the symptoms of the disease).
- Medications to normalize the functioning of the nervous system (taken in conjunction with medications of the first group).
- Sedatives (fight anxiety, regulate sleep and appetite).
- Drugs that have an inhibitory effect on the central nervous system.
It must be remembered that only a doctor can prescribe such drugs, and taking into account the age characteristics of patients and the properties of the above drugs. The result of therapy is likely to be noticeable only after ten to twenty days.
Psychotherapeutic Techniques
A visit to a therapist is an integral part of treating clinical depression. Such techniques help the patient to understand the origins of his illness, and will also help prevent a deterioration in his mental state.
In order to treat patients with clinical depression, doctors use
behavioral therapy and psychoanalytic sessions, group exercises. It must be remembered that exacerbations of the disease periodically occur. Therefore, patients with such a pathology should be constantly observed by a psychotherapist. If the patient correctly receives the treatment prescribed by the doctor, as a rule, after a few months his condition improves.
How to prevent the development of the disease?
How can clinical depression be prevented? Disease prevention recommendations include the following:
- Going for sports, walks in the fresh air.
- Consultation with a specialist in detecting signs of the disease.
- The correct intake of drugs, compliance with the instructions of a psychotherapist.
- Healthy lifestyle, getting rid of bad habits.
- Compliance with the correct daily routine, sufficient rest.
- Treatment of somatic diseases.
- Communication with people, pet care.
- Nutrition
- The presence of hobbies, hobbies.
Compliance with all these recommendations will allow a person to avoid such serious consequences of the disease as loss of social skills, maladaptation, and even suicide.
Finally
Clinical depression is a mental disorder that can be caused by various reasons: genetic predisposition, hormonal disorders, somatic diseases, personality traits, external changes. This disease is different from ordinary sadness, because the symptoms of the pathology quickly intensify and lead to the patient being removed from society. A person cannot carry out labor activity, his attention and memory are reduced. Also lost contact with people.
In order to diagnose depression, a person needs to talk with a specialist and take a blood test to the level of the “hormone of joy”. Treatment of the disease involves taking medications that regulate the functioning of the nervous system, as well as psychotherapy sessions.
Complications of depression can be prevented if you lead an active lifestyle, avoid stress as much as possible, eat right, diagnose and combat somatic pathologies in a timely manner, and fill your life with interests and communication with people.
If signs of this disease are found, you should consult a doctor as soon as possible. After all, the quality of life of the patient depends on how timely and correct the therapy is. It must be remembered that depression can provoke serious complications, up to suicide.