Beh_225_Depression

Depression the Disorder and Treatment BEH 225 Depression is a wide spread disorder that effects most people at one time or another. In this paper I will be going over what depression is and how it affects people. I will also be explaining different treatments for the disorder. Depression One of the most common mood disorders is depression. Depression can affect people in many different was depending on the severity of the condition. In cases of depression the person may have feelings of worthlessness, lose interest in activities and feel sad all of the time. The depression can affect how people act as well. Things that they once enjoyed they may not have any interest in doing anymore. Depression can also affect people by making them tired not wanting to get out of bed or do their daily activities. People that have bad cases of depression have been known to lose interest in sex, have trouble sleeping, and quit eating. Depression can affect a person everyday life making it hard for them to function as they normally would and in some cases this goes to the point that the person may even think about or attempt suicide. There two types of depression the normal depression that everyone goes through and clinical depression. The normal depression is the one everyone goes through. Most of the time this happens after a loved one dies, a relationship falls, or a person’s life has a dramatic turn for the bad. This is sometimes referred to as the blues and a change in the weather can be the blame. The blues or normal depression passes quickly with time and the person returns to the normal tasks in life. Clinical depression is long lasting and serious and is classified as a mood disorder. DSM-IV-RT distinguishes two types of clinical depression they are major depression disorder that last up to several months and dysthymia. Dysthymia can last for two years or more. Some of these depressions can cause people to become psychotic losing touch with reality. This loss of reality can cause people to believe that people are against them or out to kill them also. Some of the people get so bad that they have to be put into a hospital to keep them from hurting themselves. Children can also suffer from depression but this is hard to diagnose because children have different symptoms then adults. The symptoms in children can range from not gaining weight to delayed speech and motor skills. In school age children the symptoms can be antisocial behavior, excessive worrying, and not being able to sleep. Treatment of depression The most common way to treat depression is through the use of prescription drugs. There were only two drugs available to treat depression until the late 1980’s. These drugs were monoamine oxidase inhibitors and tricyclics. These drugs were used to increase the concentration of the neurotransmitters serotonin and norepinephrine in the brain (McKim, 1997). Both of these drugs work very well for people that had serious depression. The problem was that they came with some troublesome side effects. In 1988 Prozac was introduced onto the market as a drug to treat depression. This drug works by reducing the uptake of serotonin in the nervous system this increasing the amount of serotonin active in the brain. Since the introduction of this drug there have been many more put onto the market like Paxil, Zoloft, and Effexor. All of these drugs do the same thing as the Prozac but using different chemicals. These drugs have far less side effects then the earlier drugs and work as good or better they have been called the wonder drug for treating depression. Today’s anti-depression drugs are not only treating depression but are also being used to treat anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, social phobia, and post-traumatic stress disorder. All thought these drugs are very effective they don’t work for everyone. Some people have had strong side effects from these drugs and are unable to take them. These drugs can also have with draw effects if they are abruptly stop from use. We have learned that depressions can effective people in many different ways. This can be just a little case of the blues that ends in a few weeks or shorter or a case of the person ending up in the hospital because they are a threat to themselves and others. The treatment of this disorder is normally treated through drugs that are designed to fix the imbalance in the brain. I hope that I have shed a little light on the disorder of depression throughout this paper. References Chapter 13-14 of Psychology: An Introduction