Good Psychiatrist In delhi

Depression and Mental Health Research and Studies

Depression is the common cold of mental illness! The saying goes true because as we see that the common cold is so common, depression is quite common among general population with an incidence rate 10%, but the 10% literally means a person can have an episode once in a life time and the average rate is 10%.Among them major depressive disorder is one of the serious mental disorder that affects an individual's quality of life. A depression can be a state of sadness, lack of hope, helpless feeling, and gloomy state with or without a triggering factor. You are said to be depressive only when you have more than 2 symptoms mentioned below.

Feeling of numbness, hopelessness, helplessness, memory impairment, libido, social withdrawal, over eating or not eating, sleeping too much or not sleeping, withdrawn from social activity. In rare cases you will see bizarre thoughts, delusional feelings and hallucinations. An estimated rate of 5.3% of adults and 4% of adolescents will suffer from serious depression. Unfortunately women suffers more from depression, about (12% of women) and 7% of males will be affected. 15 people out of 100 depressive clients will commit suicide and 10 are successful.

Mental health research on causes of depression

The causes of depression can be divided into intrapsychic, environmental, and biological. Intrapsychic causes according to Sigmund are those occurring deep inside the mind that causes conflicts and no other external factors are responsible. He explains that the cognitive a person's interpretation of a given situations is sole responsible for depression. Some people feel guilty of self and blame for themselves that makes them depressed. Environmental factors are those external factors like environmental disasters, personal losses lower socioeconomic status, r frustration, issues with relationships causes depression. Biological factors like physical health presence of specific humors, fluids in the body, abnormalities found in the neuroendocrine functions, anatomical defects, genetic causes may lead to depression.

Another theory called Hypothalamus pituitary axis theory says that levels of cortisols are responsible for depression because the higher levels of cortisols secretion are directly related to depression.

Signs and symptoms of depression

The most identifiable symptom is sad mood that easily does not go away. Some of them can have just an occasional sadness. The depressive symptoms depends upon levels or degrees of depression like euphoria, elation, ecstasy etc. The person generally loses interest or pleasure in all the activities he does. Weight gain or to weight loss of 5% of body weight. In children, this symptom may appear as a failure to make normal weight gains related to growth. Psychomotor retardation or slowness in thinking, speech disturbance, agitated body movements, a sense of worthlessness or inferior feeling. lack of clear thinking, concentration, and decision-making.

Diagnosis

Taking history that explains a disturbed sleeping patterns, hereditary factors, changes in appetite, mood and sexual activities. Beck Depression Inventory gives clear picture of depth of depression

Treatments

There are various options to treat depression but the root of treatment lies in how effectively individual can change mindset and identifying the cause. Some of the therapeutic options are explained below as

Cognitive psychotherapies

This type of therapies are based on the principle that depressed people are depressed due to the reason that they perceive themselves as they are sad and they perceive world in an unrealistically negative way. So the therapist assists the patients to identify the automatic those negative, thoughts that lead them to this situation and slowly train them to challenge those negative thoughts to come back to normalcy.

Social skills training

Social skills training is a therapy that is much helpful in those depressed persons who tend to be isolated by themselves and completely lost confidence in the ability to develop healthy relationships. The core of therapy is in social training.

Drug therapy for depression

A class of drugs called tricyclic antidepressants and MAO inhibitors are useful in the treatment and some of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like fluoxetine /prodep and sertraline (that acts directly on the neuro-transmitters will help in overcoming depression. Mainstream approach is the use of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) with the use of high voltage electrode touch to the temporal lobes.

Alternative and complementary treatments http://www.justhealth.in/Psychiatrists/delhi

Meditation plays vital role in managing depression, a study proved by comparing the two groups by experimenting 1 hour of meditation on a group for 3 months. There was a profound change in the therapy group`s mood. Acupuncture on the other side helps to some extent, some of the Ayurveda medicines will also play role in making person happy.http://www.justhealth.in/

Prevention

1. Exercise programmes, yoga and meditation could help in preventing the depression.
2. Gradual reduction can be seen in case of cognitively trained patients, hereditary screening and early treatment will reduce depression. Social skills training will divert the person from the deep feelings of sadness.
3. Psycho educational work that control maladaptive behaviors can help in beating the depression.