Depression Tips

Job Loss May Lead to Clinical Depression

Clinical depression (also called major depressive disorder or unipolar depression when compared to bipolar disorder) is a state of intense sadness, melancholia or despair that has advanced to the point of being disruptive to an individual’s social functioning and/or activities of daily living.

Although a low mood or state of dejection that does not affect functioning is often colloquially referred to as depression, clinical depression is a clinical diagnosis and may be different from the everyday meaning of “being depressed.” Many people identify the feeling of being clinically depressed as “feeling sad for no reason”, or “having no motivation to do anything.” One suffering from depression may feel tired, sad, irritable, lazy, unmotivated, and apathetic. Clinical depression is generally acknowledged to be more serious than normal depressed feelings. It often leads to constant negative thinking and sometimes substance abuse. Extreme depression can culminate in its sufferers attempting or committing suicide.

Without careful assessment, delirium can easily be confused with depression and a number of other psychiatric disorders because many of the signs and symptoms are conditions present in depression, as well as other mental illnesses including dementia and psychosis

Major clinical depression

• Depression with Melancholic Features - Melancholia is characterized by a loss of pleasure (anhedonia) in most or all activities, a failure of reactivity to pleasurable stimuli, a quality of depressed mood more pronounced than that of grief or loss, a worsening of symptoms in the morning hours, early morning waking, psychomotor retardation, anorexia (excessive weight loss, not to be confused with Anorexia Nervosa), or excessive guilt.
• Depression with Atypical Features - Atypical Depression is characterized by mood reactivity (paradoxical anhedonia) and positively, significant weight gain or increased appetite, excessive sleep or somnolence (hypersomnia), leaden paralysis, or significant social impairment as a consequence of hypersensitivity to perceived interpersonal rejection. Contrary to its name, atypical depression is the most common form of depression.
• Depression with Psychotic Features - Some people with Major Depressive or Manic episode may experience psychotic features. They may be presented with hallucinations or delusions that are either mood-congruent (content coincident with depressive themes) or non-mood-congruent (content not coincident with depressive themes). It is clinically more common to encounter a delusional system as an adjunct to depression than to encounter hallucinations, whether visual or auditory.

Other categories of depression

Dysthymia is a long-term, mild depression that lasts for a minimum of two years. There must be persistent depressed mood continuously for at least two years. By definition the symptoms are not as severe as with Major Depression, although those with Dysthymia are vulnerable to co-occurring episodes of Major Depression. This disorder often begins in adolescence and crosses the lifespan. People who are diagnosed with major depressive episodes and dysthymic disorder are diagnosed with double depression. Dysthymic disorder develops first and then one or more major depressive episodes happen later.

Diagnosis

It is hard for people who have not experienced clinical depression, either personally or by regular exposure to people suffering it, to understand its emotional impact and severity, interpreting it instead as being similar to “having the blues” or “feeling down.” As the list of symptoms below indicates, clinical depression is a serious, potentially lethal systemic disorder characterized by the psychiatric profession as interlocking physical, affective, and cognitive symptoms that have consequences for function and survival well beyond sad or painful feelings.

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Add comment June 26th, 2007

Income Level May Effect Depression Treatment Response

Low-income people with depression are less likely to respond to treatment and more likely to be suicidal than those who have higher incomes, according to a study in the January issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Socioeconomic factors, including income, education and occupation, have long been linked to health status, illness and death. Research has shown that people with lower socioeconomic status (SES) are more likely to develop a depressive illness and that their depression is more severe than that of people higher on the SES scale. Several studies have hypothesized that socioeconomic factors, including income and education, would also affect how people respond to medications and other therapies for depression, but have ultimately proved inconclusive, according to background information in the article.

Alex Cohen, Ph.D., of Harvard Medical School, Boston, and colleagues reanalyzed two previous clinical trials funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and conducted at the University of Pittsburgh. The 248 participants were all 59 years or older and receiving antidepressant medications combined with psychotherapy. Their education levels were assessed at the beginning of the original studies. Median annual household income for their areas was obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau. Low-income was defined as less than $25,000, middle-income between $25,000 and $50,000 and high-income more than $50,000. The subjects’ depressive symptoms and response to treatment were measured weekly.

When the authors controlled for demographic factors, such as age and gender, and baseline clinical characteristics, including recurrence of depression and age at onset, they found that people in areas defined as middle-income were significantly more likely to respond to treatment than those in the low-income group. High-income people were only marginally more likely to respond to treatment than middle-income residents, but as a group, high- and middle-income study participants were significantly more likely to respond than those in low-income areas.

In addition, people in low-income areas were about twice as likely as those in middle-income areas and two and a half times as likely as those in high-income tracts to be suicidal, “suggesting an inverse relationship between the median household income of the neighborhoods in which subjects resided and suicidality,” the authors write.

The authors found that years of education did not affect treatment response or suicidality in this particular study group. “When the older subjects in our study came of age, economic and social success in the industrial economy was not so dependent on education,” they write. “Thus, we speculate that years of education is a less accurate measure of SES in this sample.”

Based on their findings, the authors “suggest that future clinical trials routinely gather data on individual income, educational degrees earned, occupation and aspects of the broader social environment such as social capital. However, to transform evidence into knowledge that will inform the treatment of depression, it is essential that future research examines all of the factors (for example, neighborhoods, stress, social support, race/ethnicity or income inequalities) that may mediate the association between SES and clinical outcomes.”

Based on their findings, the authors “suggest that future clinical trials routinely gather data on individual income, educational degrees earned, occupation and aspects of the broader social environment such as social capital. However, to transform evidence into knowledge that will inform the treatment of depression, it is essential that future research examines all of the factors (for example, neighborhoods, stress, social support, race/ethnicity or income inequalities) that may mediate the association between SES and clinical outcomes.”

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Add comment June 18th, 2007

Mushrooms May Cure Depression

Mushrooms have been used for thousands of years both as food and for medicinal purposes. Mushrooms are the fruiting body and reproductive structure of a higher order fungus organism. Mushrooms are widely distributed throughout the world, and thousands of species have been identified.

Mushrooms have high nutritional value. They help keep a healthy body and get away with diseases. Edible mushrooms are indeed nutritious. They are a good source of B vitamins, especially riboflavin and niacin, and rank the highest among vegetables for protein content. Mushrooms are brimming with protein, B vitamins and minerals including selenium, potassium and copper.

They’re low in calories and may have antibacterial substances to help the body. Cooked fresh mushrooms offer the most nutritional benefit versus the canned version that may have more sodium. . Mushrooms have been gaining more importance as health food and a source of valuable medicines.

I can appreciate the mention of mushrooms as a possible aid in mood change but considering that ”magic” mushrooms and their spores are illegal to own and illegal to grow, I don’t think it’s a very realistic tool. Mushrooms are incredibly intense and produce shattering experiences that could only be called mystical - but while the effects may cause one to feel more open emotionally - it is a far cry from anything that really addresses the core of the problem. It provides more questions than answers.

Scientists are to investigate a hallucinogenic chemical in “magic mushrooms” as a possible new treatment for depression, anxiety and drug dependence.

The move follows an unusual study which showed that the compound, psilocybin, can prompt long lasting positive changes in mood and behaviour.

Researchers also found that people who took the chemical experienced genuine mystical experiences, as defined by psychologists.

A third of the 36 study participants described their psilocybin experience as the “most spiritually significant” of their lives.

Some likened it to the importance of the birth of their first child or the death of a parent.

Magic mushrooms, or “shrooms”, come in several varieties, all of which contain psilocybin. Until last year a loophole in the law meant they were not illegal in their natural state in the UK.

Under the Drugs Act 2005 they are now classified as a Class A drug, like heroin or cocaine.

Possession may be punishable by several years in jail, while supplying the mushrooms could result in a life sentence.

Professor Roland Griffiths, from Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, led the study, the first rigorous investigation of the effects of “tripping” on a drug for decades.

The volunteers were all healthy, well-educated, mostly middle-aged and with no family history of psychotic illness.

Each attended two separate eight hour drug sessions at two month intervals. On one occasion they received psilocybin, on the other the drug Ritalin which was used as a placebo.

Medical professionals were on hand to act as “monitors” and observe what happened. Neither the participants nor the monitors knew when the test drug was being taken.

The trials took place in a room fitted out as a comfortable lounge, with soft music and indirect lighting.

Heart rate and blood pressure were measured, and questionnaires used to assess volunteers’ experiences.

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Add comment June 10th, 2007

Hypothyroidism May Cause Depression

Hypothyroidism is a condition in which the body lacks sufficient thyroid hormone. Since the main purpose of thyroid hormone is to “run the body’s metabolism”, it is understandable that people with this condition will have symptoms associated with a slow metabolism. Over five million Americans have this common medical condition

There are two fairly common causes of hypothyroidism:- The first is a result of previous (or currently ongoing) inflammation of the thyroid gland which leaves a large percentage of the cells of the thyroid damaged (or dead) and incapable of producing sufficient hormone. The most common cause of thyroid gland failure is called autoimmune thyroiditis (also called Hashimoto’s thyroiditis), a form of thyroid inflammation caused by the patient’s own immune system. The second major cause is the broad category of “medical treatments”.  As noted on a number of our other pages, the treatment of many thyroid conditions warrants surgical removal of a portion or all of the thyroid gland. If the total mass of thyroid producing cells left within the body are not enough to meet the needs of the body, the patient will develop hypothyroidism. Remember, this is often the goal of the surgery as seen in surgery for thyroid cancer.

Occasionally, (often?) the result of radioactive iodine treatment will be that too many cells are damaged so the patient often becomes hypothyroid a year or two later. This is O.K. and usually greatly preferred over the original problem. There are several other rare causes of hypothyroidism, one of them being a completely “normal” thyroid gland which is not making enough hormone because of a problem in the pituitary gland. If the pituitary does not produce enough Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) then the thyroid simply does not have the “signal” to make hormone, so it doesn’t..

Symptoms of  hypothyroidism:-

• Fatigue
• Weakness
• Weight gain or increased difficulty losing weight
• Coarse, dry hair
• Dry, rough pale skin
• Hair loss
• Cold intolerance (can’t tolerate the cold like those around you)
• Muscle cramps and frequent muscle aches
• Constipation
• Depression
• Irritability
• Memory loss
• Abnormal menstrual cycles
• Decreased libido

Each individual patient will have any number of these symptoms which will vary with the severity of the thyroid hormone deficiency and the length of time the body has been deprived of the proper amount of hormone. Some patients will have one of these symptoms as their main complaint, while another will not have that problem at all and will be suffering from a different symptom. Most will have a combination of a number of these symptoms. Occasionally, some patients with hypothyroidism have no symptoms at all, or they are just so subtle that they go unnoticed.  Note:   Although this may sound obvious, if you have these symptoms, you need to discuss them with your doctor and probably seek the skills of an endocrinologist.  If you have already been diagnosed and treated for hypothyroidism and you continue to have any or all of these symptoms, you need to discuss it with your physician.  Although treatment of hypothyroidism can be quite easy in some individuals, others will have a difficult time finding the right type and amount of replacement thyroid hormone.

How long will the effects last?

Usually hypothyroidism improves within a week after hormone therapy is begun. All symptoms go away within a few weeks. In most cases, however, you must continue this treatment for the rest of your life.

Mild hypothyroidism may cause no symptoms. If the disease progresses, however, it can become disabling over a long time if it is not treated. Untreated hypothyroidism may cause the following problems:

• enlargement of the heart and heart failure (rare)
• slowing of mental processes
• loss of consciousness.

If not treated, long-lasting thyroiditis can cause goiter, a swelling of the thyroid gland. This swelling may cause a big bulge in the neck.

How can I take care ?

Many people with hypothyroidism, especially older adults, don’t seek medical treatment because they don’t know they have a problem. They may accept their symptoms of fatigue, muscle weakness, dry skin, depression, feeling cold, and constipation as signs of aging. If you notice some of the symptoms of hypothyroidism, see your health care provider.

When you have hypothyroidism, be sure to:-

• Follow your provider’s instructions for taking your medicine.
• Get your thyroid hormone level checked when your provider suggests.
• Keep your follow-up appointments

What can be done to help prevent hypothyroidism?

Except in the case when it is caused by a lack of iodine in the diet, hypothyroidism cannot be prevented. However, treatment is simple and inexpensive

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Add comment June 6th, 2007

Holding Hand of Your Spouse May Reduce Your Stress!

In today’s fast-paced world, many people are seeking a way to get away from it all and relax. Let’s face it–the stress and strain of your “to do” list can really take its toll on family life. People who deal with stress have “lifelines” to others who can help. Support is very important. People with support have fewer stress-related health problems. Especially the kind of support you get from your spouse since you share a special bonding with your spouse. Bonding in terms of emotional & physical expected to a greater extent; appears as a basis of healing in times of stress.

Stress is familiar to everyone. You may associate it with an ache in your stomach, sweaty palms, a pounding heart or a dry mouth. What causes these stress reactions? It depends. It could be a traffic jam that makes you late for work, a misunderstanding with a close friend or spouse, a death in the family, or fear of failure at work. But all these events are not necessarily stressful. They are potential stressors - situations, thoughts or feelings that can trigger the stress response. This stress response is your body’s physical reaction to events that you interpret as threatening or challenging.

Holding a hand of your spouse in those most distressing moments may help to overcome anxiety and depression. There surely is some truth in it. Even so there is more that can be done to cure anxiety and depression. Anxiety and depression is deeply engrained in our mind - and about “25 per cent of us will experience the effects of anxiety disorders at some point in our lives, with sometimes dire repercussions for friends, family and our own well-being”.

Communicating with you spouse

When you are under stress, having someone to talk to about your feelings is very important. Having just one person ‘ your spouse’ to confide in and ask for help makes a difference. It reduces your stress and improves your health. It also gives you a feeling of being accepted and respected.

The Power of Touch

All individuals, regardless of age or abilities, have the need for touch and love and the desire for companionship. Touch is a human need and personalizes care giving. People respond to touch depending upon their upbringing and self-image. A touch can convey compassion, not just sexual interest. It can convey reassurance (as a gentle stroking of the forearm), safety (as an arm around the shoulder) or relaxation (as a shoulder massage) among other feelings.

So often we rely on the “miracles of modern medicine” and technological solutions to the stresses of aging and physical illness (and even spiritual/emotional losses). Most religions have traditions of the healing and curative powers of touch. These traditions can be interpreted as myth or fact. Yet even modern science recognizes the importance of human interaction and physical contact. Touching or massage can promote physiological responses such as decreased nervous tension, decreased muscle contractions, increased circulation, and decreased heart rate and blood pressure.

Remember, a balanced approach to health will help you look better, feel better and enjoy improved function in your everyday life.  It is essential to maintain your balance and minimize your stress level. Developing strategies and taking positive actions in all areas of health give you the balance that helps enhance and maintain health and wellness.

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Add comment June 4th, 2007

Heart Surgery May Cause Depression

It is common for you to feel sad or depressed after a heart attack, cardiac surgery or procedure, recent hospitalization, or new diagnosis of heart disease. These emotions may be the result of not knowing what to expect or not being able to do simple tasks without becoming overly tired.

Temporary feelings of sadness are normal, and should gradually go away within a few weeks, as you get back to your normal routine and activities.

Sometimes, however, a depressed mood can prevent you from leading a normal life. When a depressed mood is severe and accompanied by other symptoms that persist every day for two or more weeks, treatment is necessary to help you cope and recover

Role of depression in cardiac patient:-

• Unmanaged stress can lead to high blood pressure, arterial damage, irregular heart rhythms, and a weakened immune system.
• For people with heart disease, depression increases the risk for an adverse cardiac event such as a heart attack or blood clots. For people who do not have heart disease, depression increases the risk of heart attack and coronary disease.
• One in six patients who have had a heart attack suffer from clinical depression. In one study, the continued presence of depression after recovery increased the risk of death (mortality rate) to 17% within six months after a heart attack (versus 3% mortality in heart attack patients who didn’t suffer from depression).
• During recovery from cardiac surgery, depression can intensify pain, cause worsened fatigue and sluggishness, or cause a person to withdraw into social isolation. Patients who have had coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery and have untreated depression after surgery also have an increased morbidity and mortality rate.
• Patients with heart failure and depression have an increased risk of being readmitted to the hospital within three months to one year after their hospitalization.
• Negative lifestyle habits associated with depression - such as smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, lack of exercise, poor diet, and lack of social support – interfere with the treatment for heart disease.

Depressive disorders result from a mix of factors  that relate to :

• A person’s family history, physical health, state of mind and environment
• High levels of stress, life transitions, loss and many other factors
• Imbalances in the chemicals that the body uses to control mood

How do I know when to seek help?

If you are recovering from heart disease, a heart attack, or another heart condition, feelings of sadness and a depressed mood are common for the first few weeks.

However, treatment is necessary when depression is severe and accompanied by other symptoms (including withdrawal from activities, not responding when visiting with family and friends, increased negative thoughts, and tearfulness). Without treatment, depression can become worse. For heart patients, depression can contribute to an increased risk of heart attack and coronary disease. Your health care provider can refer you to a mental health specialist who can provide the appropriate treatment when necessary.

When depression is negatively affecting your life — such as causing difficulties with relationships, work issues, or family disputes — and there isn’t a clear solution to these problems, then you should seek help to prevent things from getting worse.

More specific reasons to seek help include:

• You have suicidal thoughts or feelings. Suicide is an irreversible solution to problems and causes permanent harm to family members and friends. If you are having thoughts of suicide, call your physician or local 24-hour suicide hotline right away, or go to the nearest emergency room for help.
• Your negative feelings persist daily for two weeks or more.
• You have significant difficulty with your daily routine, social activities and/or work.
• You don’t have anyone in whom you can confide. If you don’t have anyone to share your thoughts with, it’s hard to know if what you’re thinking makes sense.

Conclusion:-

The early detection and treatment of depression in heart patients are crucial to improve a patient’s quality of life and prevent a recurrent coronary event. When left untreated, depression can worsen heart disease and increase the risk of a heart attack. Safe treatments are available to help you cope with depression and help you manage your heart disease.

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Add comment June 1st, 2007