The development of newer antidepressant medications and mood-stabilizing drugs has improved the treatment of depression. Medications can relieve symptoms of depression and have become the first line of treatment for most types of the disorder.
Treatment may also include psychotherapy, which may help you cope with ongoing problems that may trigger or contribute to depression. A combination of medications and a brief course of psychotherapy usually is effective if you have mild to moderate depression. If you're severely depressed, initial treatment usually is with medications or electroconvulsive therapy. Once you improve, psychotherapy can be more effective.
Doctors usually treat depression in two stages. Acute treatment with medications helps relieve symptoms until you feel well. Once your symptoms ease, maintenance treatment typically continues for four to nine months to prevent a relapse. It's important to keep taking your medication even though you feel fine and are back to your usual activities. Episodes of depression recur in the majority of people who have one episode, but continuing treatment greatly reduces your risk of a rapid relapse. If you've had two or more previous episodes of depression, your doctor may suggest long-term treatment with antidepressants.
This type of depression is an extremely unpredictable sort of depression in which the person does not know when he/she is happy or sad. As a result they remain depressed all the time and wish to end their life. People with dysthymia generally experience little or no joy in their lives. Instead things are rather gloomy most of the time. If you have dysthymia you may be unable to remember a time when you felt happy, excited, or inspired. It may seem as if you have been depressed all your life. You probably have a hard time enjoying things and having fun. Rather, you might tend to be inactive and withdrawn , you worry frequently, and criticize yourself as being a failure. You may also feel guilty, irritable, sluggish, and have difficulty sleeping regularly. Dysthymia is a milder yet more enduring type of depression that affects women two to three times more often than men. The diagnosis is given when a person has had continuous depressed mood for at least two years. For children, the duration only needs to be one year, and their mood may be irritable rather than sad or depressed. People with dysthymia may appear to be chronically mildly depressed to the point that it seems to be a part of their personality. When a person finally seeks treatment for dysthymia, it is not uncommon that he/she has had this condition for a number of years. Because dysthymia may develop early in a person's life, it is not uncommon for someone with this condition to believe that it is normal to always feel depressed. They often to do realize that the quality of their mood is anything out of the ordinary. This illness often goes unnoticed and, therefore, untreated. Dysthymia is a condition that tends to develop early in a person's life, but most people delay approximately ten years before every seeking treatment. This is unfortunate since the sooner a person seeks help the sooner he or she can get relief and possibly avoid further distress. It is very important that children with symptoms of dysthymia receive an evaluation from a mental health professional or physician. Early treatment may help these youngsters avoid more serious mood disorders, difficulties in school and their social life, and possible substance abuse problems as they get older. At any point in time, 3% of the population may be affected by dysthymia. Within a lifetime it appears to affect approximately 6%. Those with immediate relatives who have had major depressive disorder have a greater likelihood of developing dysthymia. If a person develops dysthymia it usually happens early in their lives- from childhood to early adulthood. The symptoms of dysthymia tend to be chronic, yet people often do not seek treatment unless they develop major depression. Having dysthymic disorder increases the risk of developing major depressive disorder. Of those with dysthymia approximately 10% will go on to develop major depression. The presence of both conditions is sometimes known as "double depression." Dysthymia may also be associated with the presence of personality disorders (e.g., avoidant, dependent, histrionic, borderline, narcissistic). However, it can sometimes be difficult to determine the extent to which a personality disorder is present since some of the long-term problems of dysthymia may affect interpersonal relationships as well as how a person perceives him- or herself. Dysthymia may also be related to substance use. People with this type of chronic depression may abuse drugs or alcohol in trying to relieve their despondency and other unpleasant symptoms. Dysthymia in children may sometimes be related to anxiety disorders, learning disorders, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), conduct disorder, and mental retardation. Physical illnesses that may be associated with dysthymia include acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), hypothyroidism, and multiple sclerosis.
AGI) - London, Jan. 29 - Life may begin at forty, but a survey claims that immediately after that the darkest years start. The survey was carried out by the University of Warwick (UK) and the Dartmouth College (US) and shows that 44 years is the age when people are most at risk of depression. Two million people have been interviewed in 80 countries. The U.S. form an exception: women are most depressed around 40, men around the age of 50. The new survey will be published by 'Social Science & Medicine', and is interesting because all previous research said that the risk of depression was constant and independent from age. Professor Andrew Oswald, an economist of the University of Warwick, said that the researchers were unable to identify the cause of increased depression at a certain age.
Medical science is doing wonders day by day now there is hope for people who have clots in their brains and are on a critical stage altogether but there is treatment for such patients and cure is possible too. It's a tiny vacuum cleaner for the brain: A new treatment for stroke victims promises to suction out clogged arteries in hopes of stopping the brain attack before it does permanent harm. Called Penumbra, the newly approved device is the latest in a series of inside-the-artery attempts to boost recovery from stroke, the nation's No. 3 killer. Now the question is how to determine which patients are good candidates — because, illogical as it may sound, unclogging isn't always the best option. "Is the patient at a stage of stroke where you're going to hurt them by pulling a clot out, or show benefit?" asks Dr. Walter Koroshetz of the National Institutes of Health. "It's good we have devices. Now we have to learn how to use them." More than 700,000 Americans suffer a stroke each year, and more than 150,000 of them die. Survivors often face serious disability. Most strokes occur when blood vessels feeding the brain become blocked, starving delicate brain cells of oxygen until they die. For those, the clot-busting drug TPA can mean the difference between permanent brain injury or recovery — but only if patients receive intravenous TPA within three hours of the first symptoms. Yet fewer than 5 percent of stroke sufferers get TPA, because they don't get specialized care in time. And of those treated, it only helps about 30 percent, because the clot is often too big or tough for TPA to bust. Enter Penumbra, an option for patients who miss out on early care — it can be tried up to eight hours after a stroke strikes — or if standard TPA treatment fails. Specialists thread a tiny tube inside a blood vessel at the groin and push it up the body and into the brain until it reaches the clog. Just like a vacuum cleaner, it sucks up the clot bit by bit to restore blood flow. For the right patient, Penumbra can produce dramatic help, says Dr. Demetrius Lopes of Chicago's Rush University Medical Center, one of two dozen hospitals that tested the device in 125 severe stroke patients. He points to 45-year-old Aretha Streeter, whose left side remained paralyzed almost an hour after a big dose of TPA. Lopes scanned her brain and spotted a key artery completely blocked. She agreed to the Penumbra experiment, and started moving as Lopes suctioned out the clot. Streeter was walking the next day, and was left with weakness in her arm instead of paralysis. The study's full results will be presented next month at a meeting of the American Stroke Association. But the device vacuumed out clots well enough to earn California-based Penumbra Inc. a surprise speedy approval from the Food and Drug Administration in late December. Rush's Lopes says it caused few serious side effects, and that about 42 percent of successfully treated patients showed significant recovery a month later. Penumbra isn't the only mechanical clot-buster. Doctors also can try threading a corkscrew-shaped wire called the Merci Retriever through the clot and tugging it out. Researchers also are experimenting with dripping TPA directly on the clot instead of the old IV method, and even beaming the clog with ultrasound waves for an extra jolt. Here's the rub: Unclogging sometimes does more harm than good in bad strokes, says Koroshetz, deputy director of NIH's National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke. When the dam is broken and blood rushes into oxygen-deprived brain tissue, it sometimes triggers swelling or a brain hemorrhage. Either can kill. So treatment is a balancing act: Using brain scans to estimate if the stroke already has killed all the brain tissue it's going to, or if enough still could be salvaged that it's worth the risk of this injury, Koroshetz explains. "Your ability to succeed with taking the clot out depends on what's going on in the brain," he cautions. The NIH is funding a 900-patient study comparing standard therapy with different inside-the-artery treatments — the TPA drip, ultrasound, and the Merci Retriever — to tell if and how they should be used. Researchers will decide soon whether to include the new Penumbra device in that study. What treatment to pick is a doctor's dilemma. For patients, the message is clear: Call 911 as soon as you experience stroke symptoms. They include sudden numbness or weakness, especially on one side; confusion, trouble speaking or walking; or an abrupt terrible headache. Aretha Streeter didn't realize the worst headache of her life meant a stroke had begun, although her mother had died of a stroke and her sister had survived one. Fortunately she went on to her job as a hospital technician at Rush, so care was just steps away when she slumped over. "It came and went so fast," Streeter says in amazement at both the speed of the stroke, and its treatment.
Life may begin at 40, but research suggests that 44 is the age at which we are most vulnerable to depression.
There is always a reaction to an action in the same way there is always a reason to get depressed or get into a major depressive phase and I think the only reason to get depressed is the external stimuli that triggers a depressive mood in a person maybe for some time and at times for ever for which the individual has to get psychiatric help or counseling. Major depressive disorder is also known as major depression, clinical depression, or unipolar depression. The term unipolar refers to the presence of one pole, or one extreme of mood- depressed mood. This may be compared with bipolar depression which has the two poles of depressed mood and mania (i.e., euphoria, heightened emotion and activity). Different people are affected in different ways by major depression. Some people have trouble sleeping, they lose weight, and they generally feel agitated and irritable. Others may sleep and eat too much and continuously feel worthless and guilty. Still others can function reasonably well at work and put on a "happy face" in front of others, while deep down they feel quite depressed and disinterested in life. There is no one way that people look and behave when they have major depression. However, most people will either have depressed mood or a general loss of interest in activities they once enjoyed, or a combination of both. In addition they will have other physical and mental symptoms that may include fatigue, difficulty with concentration and memory, feelings of hopelessness and helplessness, headaches, body aches, and thoughts of suicide. In adults, major depressive disorder affects twice as many women as men. For both genders it is most common in those who are 25-44 years of age, and least common for those over the age of 65. In children, clinical depression affects girls and boys at about the same rate. Within an entire lifetime, major depression will affect 10%-25% of women and 5%-12% of men. At any one point in time, 5%-9% of women and 2%-3% of men are likely to be clinically depressed. Although major depression can occur at any age, the average age for developing the illness seems to be in a person's mid-20's. However, the average age of onset of the condition appears to be decreasing. Those with a parent or sibling who has had major depression may be 1.5 to 3 times more likely to develop the condition than those who do not. For those who have recurrent episodes of major depression, the course of the illness tends to vary. Some people experience bouts of depression separated by years between episodes in which there are no symptoms. Others may have periods of several episodes. Still others may have more and more occurrences as they age. Some studies have indicated that the more depressive episodes a person experiences, the less time there is between the episodes. Also, the number of episodes a person has had may predict the possibility of having another bout with depression. Of those who have had a single major depressive episode, 50%-60% may develop a second one. About 70% of those who have had two episodes may have a third, and 90% who have had three may have a fourth. For about two-thirds of those individuals who have a major depressive episode they will recover completely. The other one-third may recover only partially or not at all. People who do not recover completely may have a higher chance of experiencing one or more additional episodes. It is estimated that 10%-25% of those who develop major depressive disorder have previously had dysthymic disorder, and each year about 10% of those with dysthymic disorder will develop a first major depressive episode. There are some people who have had dysthymia prior to developing major depression. The presence of both conditions at the same time is sometimes called "double depression." Those who are in this situation may have a greater chance of developing additional depressive episodes and have more difficulty fully recovering between the episodes. They may also need to have a longer period of continued care in order to overcome their symptoms. The development of major depressive disorder may be related to certain medical illnesses. As many as 20%-25% of those who have illnesses such as cancer, stroke, diabetes, and myocardial infarction are likely to develop major depressive disorder sometime during the presence of their medical illness. Managing or treating a medical condition can be more difficulty if a person is also clinically depressed. The prognosis for the medical problem may also be less positive. It has been shown that other mental health conditions may often co-exist with major depressive disorder. Some of these are alcohol/drug abuse, anxiety and panic disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, eating disorders, and borderline personality disorder. Major depressive disorder should be taken very seriously since up to 15% of those with this condition die by suicide.
This research is surely going to come as a shock to many people as it has to me, that how can college students have sudden out burst of stress and depression all of a sudden and on top of that this teenage depression has increased since the last 13 years. After all what can be the reason that teens are getting depressed left right and centre, maybe the load of studies, not interested in studies, break ups, parental fights, and teen pregnancies/abortion are the reasons I can think of then why not make a bit of a difference in all these issues by maybe getting counseling or changes in ones life. College students frequently have more complex problems today than they did over a decade ago, including both the typical or expected college student problems -- difficulties in relationships and developmental issues -- as well as the more severe problems, such as depression, sexual assault and thoughts of suicide. That is the finding of a study involving 13,257 students seeking help at a large Midwestern university counseling center over a 13-year period. Some of these increases were dramatic. The number of students seen each year with depression doubled, while the number of suicidal students tripled and the number of students seen after a sexual assault quadrupled. The findings are reported on in the February issue of Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, a journal of the American Psychological Association (APA). Psychologist Sherry A. Benton, Ph.D. and colleagues at Kansas State University examined trends in counseling center clients' problems from the perspective of the therapist at the time of therapy termination from 1988-1989 through 2000-2001. Results indicate that in 14 of the 19 problem areas studied, counseling center clinicians reported increases in the percentages of individuals having difficulties. Up until 1994, relationship problems were the most frequently reported client problem, according to the study. But since that time, stress and anxiety problems were reported more frequently than relationship problems, with dramatic increases seen in the number of students seeking help for depression, suicidal thoughts and sexual assault. The patterns of change in the students' problems over the 13-year period were complex, according to the study. Three time periods were analyzed: academic years 1988-1992, 1992-1996, and 1996-2001 (the study period ended prior to the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks). Six problems areas showed steep increases from the first time period to the second and then appeared to stabilize from the second to the third time period. Problems following this pattern included relationship problems, stress/anxiety, family issues, physical problems, personality disorders, suicidal thought and sexual assault. Other problem areas showed a steady increase in all three time periods, including depression, grief, and academic and developmental problems. Some other problems, including those related to educational and vocational choice issues declined during the middle time period and increased in the more recent time period. Some serious problems, however, showed no significant change over the 13 years of the study, including those seeking help for substance abuse, eating disorders, legal problems and chronic mental illness. Similar studies need to be conducted at other university counseling centers, say the authors, to verify what they believe may be a national trend. "If these observed patterns of change prove to be consistent with those at other counseling centers, then it is evident that therapists in counseling centers are seeing students with more critical needs than a decade ago." This comes at a time when students are finding fewer options for counseling and mental health care in the community, leaving the role of providing care primarily in the hands of university counseling center staff, according to the researchers.
