Depression Treatment and Support

Severe depression is known by various names including clinical depression, major depressive disorder, unipolar or unipolar disorder is a mental disorder that effects about 9.5% of the US population aged 18 and older in any given year.

Everyone, will at some time be affected by depression and increasingly childhood depression is on the increase with depressive illness occurring in about 2 to 4 per cent of children.

Depression Treatment
It is important when treating depression not to forget the causes and only concentrate on the symptoms. Depression often has an underlying social and psychological cause that cannot be addressed through the use of medication alone.

Antidepressent medication
Antidepressants include Tricyclic drugs, monoamine oxidate inhibitors, and serotonin reuptake inhibitors such as prozac.

Reuptake inhibitors work on blocking the reuptake of different neurotransmitters or brain chemicals. Popular types include serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors. These drugs have fewer side effects then tricyclic drugs and monoamine oxidate inhibitors.

Antidepressants such as the above are shown to be effective in controlling depression in around one third of patients with partial success in another third while about a third experienced little to no benefit.

Cognitive behaviour therapy.
Unlike antidepressants cognitive behaviour therapy has been shown to have a significantly better success rate at beating depression for good and preventing a relapse into depression once treatment has stopped.

This is because the objective is to change the way something thinks and behaves. Therefore unlike drugs which treat the symptoms, cognitive behaviour therapy attempts to address the cause.

Often depression is caused by a faulty thinking process caused by a situation. This situation results in negative thoughts, emotions, physical feelings and actions.

Learning to change the way you think and behave to a situation can in turn change someones feeling. Cognitive behaviour therapy attempts to change the way you behave and think about yourself, the world and other people.

Electric shock treatment
You may be surprised to learn that electroconvulsive therapy is still practised in most psychiatric units in general hospitals and mental institutions. However it is only used in the most severe cases and the American Psychiatric Association has very specific guidelines for the administration of ECT.

According to a 2006 paper in the Lancet medical journal, the world’s best known and most respected general medical journals electric shock therapy and drugs are still the best way to treat depression. The main objection is loss of memory, but that can be temporary, say the authors of the review.

Symptoms of depression
The symptoms of depression will differ from person to person and the number of symptoms will depend on the severity of the depression.

Common symptoms in adults include:

Loosing interest in activities that were once enjoyable
Withdrawing socially and showing a lack of interest in others
Sudden changes in appetite and weight.
Extreme pessimism about the future
Feelings of worthlessness
Self harm

In children these can include all of the above and the following:

Difficulty concentrating on schoolwork, leading to falling grades
Difficulty sleeping or sleeping more then usual
Thoughts of death and acts of self-harm
Unwilling to socialise with other children

If you think you could be suffering depression talk to your doctor. Each person is different and the severity of depression can differ significantly. Your doctor is more likely to know what treatment is best for you.