Depression is a disease that is widespread today. It appears in people belonging to different age categories. A depressed person needs to see a specialist.
What characterizes the disease?
Clinical depression is a pathology that affects people of all ages and physical he alth conditions. In adolescents, it is common and often provokes suicide.
Symptoms of this disease are characterized by a significant decrease in mood, loss of interest in work, communication, hobbies, deterioration of memory and attention. Signs of clinical depression are not limited to a depressed emotional state.
Symptoms of the disease include much more serious disorders that lead to social maladaptation.
Another term for clinical depression is major emotional distress. This condition is characterized, in general, by a decline in physical and mental strength. Sometimes the disease can proceed in waves. In this case, the patient's mood is sometimes reduced, sometimes normal fordays or longer period of time. Specialists can diagnose clinical depression in a person if his physical and mental state is characterized by the persistence of certain pathological manifestations for fourteen days.
Main causes of disease
What factors can provoke this pathology? Causes of clinical depression include the following:
- Loss of a loved one or relative (due to separation or death).
- Firing.
- Change of environment (moving to another city, moving to another school, new job, etc.).
- Rejection by a person of the foundations that exist in society.
- Loneliness.
- Persistent physical and mental strain.
- Unrequited love.
- Complications during childbearing and delivery.
- Taking hormonal medications.
- Chemotherapy.
- Abuse of alcohol, drugs.
- Cerebral circulation disorders, head injuries.
- Severe somatic pathologies.
What personal qualities and external factors contribute to the development of the disease?
Depressed 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. Patients with clinical depression are usuallyuncommunicative individuals. They did not receive the love of relatives, the attention of their peers and friends. A depressed 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 as teenagers and adults. Symptoms of this disorder may appear in those in whose life a significant event has occurred. It can be both sad (loss of a job, falling material well-being, parting with a loved one) and joyful (marriage, the birth of a child).
Sad and happy events are both stressful, and stress is known to trigger depression.
Internal factors causing disease
Clinical depression occurs when the body's hormones are not properly produced. Such phenomena occur during the period of bearing a child and breastfeeding, with premenstrual syndrome, monthly bleeding, and also in menopause. Depression can also be caused by a genetic predisposition. If someone in the family had a relative with this disease, this person has a high probability of developing the pathology.
Depression can be triggered by taking drugs that act on the central nervous system, or stopping their use. Alcoholic beverages, coffee, desserts, and baked goods contribute to the processes in the brain that cause the symptoms of the disease. Therefore, the datafoods should be consumed in moderation.
Clinical depression in women and men
In the fair sex, this disease occurs much more often than in the strong half of humanity. And this is mainly due to hormonal imbalance. Indeed, during puberty, childbearing, breastfeeding, menstruation, menopause, the production of substances important for the body is sometimes disrupted. While men tend to have more severe clinical depression, 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 like to consume a large amount of food containing the “hormone of joy”. Men, on the other hand, prefer to drink or take drugs, which only worsen the situation.
Symptoms of clinical depression
Disease occurs due to disruption of the brain. How strongly the signs of clinical depression manifest themselves is determined by how serious the pathology is in a particular patient and what are the traits of his character. What signs are present in this disease? The following mental manifestations are characteristic of clinical depression:
- Loss of emotions.
- Feeling distant from others, loneliness.
- Lack of hobbies, hobbies.
- What previously interested and delighted the patient now bores him.
- Unreasonable depression, tears.
- Underestimated self.
- Patient losing the meaning of his existence.
- Anxiety.
- Thoughts of suicide.
- Feeling worthless.
- Decrease in concentration.
- Inappropriate behavior.
- Deterioration of memory, attention.
- Uncommunicative.
Somatic symptoms include the following:
- Loss of appetite.
- Insomnia or excessive sleepiness.
- Sluggishness.
- Pain in the head.
Diagnosis of the disorder
What type of depression is called clinical depression? In modern psychiatry, such a diagnosis is given to patients in whom the previously described symptoms appear for two or more weeks. It is also important to remember that clinical depression is not just low mood or fatigue. Such a disease involves a constant deterioration in the patient's well-being. He cannot find the strength in himself to eat, go out, engage in any activity, communicate. With a serious form of this pathology, thoughts of suicide, crazy ideas may appear.
Clinical depression is common in patients with other mental disorders. When diagnosing pathology, special attention is paid to a laboratory blood test. This study is aimed at measuring the level of the “hormone of joy”. It is believed that when it is lacking, people experience depression.
Since this disease is a mental disorder, a person who has discovered these symptoms should seek help frompsychotherapist. Only a specialist can assess the patient's condition, correctly diagnose and prescribe adequate treatment.
Therapy
A patient with clinical depression should take drugs only under the supervision of a psychotherapist.
If a person self-medicates, it can only worsen the situation. Therapy for this disease involves taking the following medications:
- Drugs for depression (helps fight the symptoms of the disease).
- Drugs to normalize the functioning of the nervous system (taken in conjunction with medicines 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, taking into account the age characteristics of patients and the properties of the above drugs. The result of therapy, most likely, will be noticeable only after ten to twenty days.
Psychotherapeutic techniques
Seeing a psychotherapist is an integral part of the treatment of clinical depression. Such techniques help the patient to understand the origins of his illness, as well as to prevent deterioration of the mental state.
In order to treat patients with clinical depression, doctors use behavioral therapy and psychoanalytic sessions, group sessions. It must be remembered thatperiodically there are exacerbations of the disease. Therefore, patients with such a pathology should be constantly observed by a psychotherapist. If the patient takes the treatment prescribed by the doctor correctly, as a rule, his condition improves after a few months.
How to prevent the development of the disease?
How can clinical depression be prevented? Recommendations for disease prevention include the following:
- Sports, outdoor walks.
- Consultation of a specialist when signs of a disease are detected.
- Proper intake of drugs, following the prescriptions of a psychotherapist.
- He althy lifestyle, getting rid of bad habits.
- Maintain proper daily routine, get enough rest.
- Treatment of somatic diseases.
- Communicating with people, caring for pets.
- Full nutrition.
- Having hobbies, hobbies.
Compliance with all these recommendations will allow a person to avoid such serious consequences of the disease as the loss of social skills, maladjustment, and even suicide.
In conclusion
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 differs from ordinary sadness, because the symptoms of the pathology quickly intensify and lead to the patient's alienation from society. A person cannot carry out labor activity, his attention and memory are reduced. Connections with people are also lost.
In order to diagnose depression, a person needs to talk with a specialist and take a blood test for 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 by leading an active lifestyle, avoiding stress as much as possible, eating right, diagnosing and dealing with somatic pathologies in a timely manner, and filling your life with interests and communication with people.
If you find signs of this disease, 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 will be. It must be remembered that depression can provoke serious complications, up to suicide.
