By: Shawn Cox
Submitted: 2010-06-29 15:21:26 | Word Count: 731
According to Paula, Teresa & Tish (2007) depression is defined as “a psychiatric illness characterized by profound and persistent feelings of sadness, despair, and/ or worthlessness that interfere with the daily functioning and personal relationships”. Each and every person sometimes feels unhappy and sad but the clinical depression is much deeper and lasts for a longer time than the usual feelings of sadness and unhappiness. When this condition affects a person, it dominates the person’s daily life and interferes with it and causes a deterioration of the mental and the physical health.
Considering some statistics, in the United States of America, this condition of depression affects approximately nineteen million people and this represents 12 percent of the total population every year. This brings about an economic cost of about forty billion U.S dollars each year. The number of women diagnosed to be depressed is twice that of men found to be depressed. However, it is not well-understood to actually conclude that women undergo depression than men or it is women who seek medical assistance mostly.
More so, it is very hard to make a comparison of the rate of depression among the various cultures. The reason why this so is that the willingness and ability to recognize and treat depression varies from one culture to the other. Depression affects all people regardless of the age; be it young children or very old people.
[ advertisement ]
Causes and Symptoms of Depression
The causes of this condition are very much complicated and are not very much completely understood. However, these causes seem to have roots in the imbalances in neurotransmitters in the brain. According to Paula, et al, (2007), “Neurotransmitters are chemicals that allow nerves to communicate with one another. Serotonin is thought to be the main neurotransmitter involved, while norepinephrine and dopamine are also thought to play a role in depression.” More so, there is a possibility that heredity may also have influence in bringing depression in a person. Those from families where greater depression occurs have a possibility of up to three times of experiencing depression.
Changes in life can bring about a kind of depression referred to as adjustment disorder. These changes in life can be brought about by death of a loved one, medical problems, one losing a job, divorce among others. This kind of depression can fade away with time and the individuals affected may adjust to their normal life. However, in some cases, this kind of disorder may further develop a more serious state which is called major depression. This condition is sometimes referred to as unipolar depression. The cause of this condition in specific terms is yet to be known (Andrew, 2008). In order for one to be diagnosed with this condition, the person must be exhibiting a minimum of five signs among others in the course same two-week duration. Paula, et al, (2007), stresses that “symptoms must not be explained by another psychiatric disorder, medical condition, or by substance use or abuse (i.e., alcohol, street drugs, and pharmaceutical drugs).” The symptoms as well, must stand for a variation from the person’s previous life condition. These signs include a depressed mood, losing interest in almost everything, loss of weight, sleeping excessively or too little, too much restlessness, fatigue, feelings of being useless, loss of concentration and reduced ability to reason and thoughts regarding death such as contemplating suicide.
The above mentioned symptoms are not necessarily exhibited in total in an individual having the condition of depression. More so, not all the people affected show these symptoms. The first signs observed in an individual who is developing depression are the complaints of physical problems like inadequate energy, tiredness, headache or stomachache. People like the adolescents portray such signs as becoming short-tempered when affected by depression (Saisan, Smith & Segal, 2009).
In children, there can be poor performance in school and they can portray withdrawal signs. It is hard to make a distinction between depression and dementia in the people who are ageing.
Depression is very common among people who are having medical disorders that are chronic like multiple sclerosis, Parkinson disease, and chronic pain among others and among those people having other psychiatric disorders that may include bulimia, anorexia nervosa among others. Major depression is mostly traced among those people who abuse such substances as alcohol, heroine, and cocaine among other substances in their struggle to deal with their depression.
