What is Depression?

Depression, is one the most common psychiatric illness worldwide. Individuals who have depression have persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness and lose interest in activities they used to enjoy once. Individuals have both emotional and physical illness. It causes severe symptoms that affect how you feel, think, and handle daily activities, such as sleeping, eating, or working. To be diagnosed with depression, symptoms must be present for at least two weeks.

How to Diagnose Depression?

The DSM-5 outlines the following criterion to make a diagnosis of depression. The individual must be experiencing five or more symptoms during the same 2-week period and at least one of the symptoms should be either (1) depressed mood or (2) loss of interest or pleasure.

Depressed mood most of the day, nearly every day.

Depressed mood most of the day, nearly every day.

Markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities most of the day, nearly every day.

Significant weight loss when not dieting or weight gain, or decrease or increase in appetite nearly every day.

DA slowing down of thought and a reduction of physical movement (observable by others, not merely subjective feelings of restlessness or being slowed down).

Fatigue or loss of energy nearly every day.

Feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt nearly every day.

Diminished ability to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness, nearly every day.

Recurrent thoughts of death, recurrent suicidal ideation without a specific plan, or a suicide attempt or a specific plan for committing suicide.

To receive a diagnosis of depression, these symptoms must cause the individual clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning. The symptoms must also not be a result of substance abuse or another medical condition.

Major depressive disorder

is associated with high mortality, much of which is accounted for by suicide. As a result, if you think someone you care about may be suffering from depression it is important to know the warning signs of suicide and to take suicidal statements extremely seriously. An active statement by someone with suicidal ideation might be something like, “I’m going to kill myself,” but other passive statements such as, “I wish I could just go to sleep and never wake up,” are equally worrying. If someone with depression exhibits these verbal markers, encourage them to consult a mental health professional immediately.

Depressed individuals also present with irritability, brooding, and obsessive rumination, and report anxiety, phobias, excessive worry over physical health, and complain of pain.

The latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the DSM-5, added two specifiers to further classify diagnoses:

With Mixed Features – This specifier allows for the presence of manic symptoms as part of the depression diagnosis in patients who do not meet the full criteria for a manic episode.

With Anxious Distress – The presence of anxiety in patients may affect prognosis, treatment options, and the patient’s response to them. Clinicians will need to assess whether or not the individual experiencing depression also presents with anxious distress.

Difference between Sadness and Depression?

Depression is more than just sadness. The difference doesn’t lie in the extent to which a person feels low rather it is a combination of factors relating to the duration of negative feelings, other symptoms, bodily impact, and the effect upon the individual’s ability to function in daily life.

Sadness is a normal emotion that everyone will experience at some point in his or her life. Be it the loss of a job, the end of a relationship, or the death of a loved one, sadness is usually caused by a specific situation, person, or event. When it comes to depression, however, no such trigger is needed. A person suffering from depression feels sad or hopeless about everything. This person may have every reason in the world to be happy and yet they lose the ability to experience joy or pleasure.

With sadness, you might feel down in the dumps for a day or two, but you’re still able to enjoy simple things like your favorite TV show, food, or spending time with friends. This isn’t the case when someone is dealing with depression. Even activities that they once enjoyed are no longer interesting or pleasurable

What’s more, when you experience sadness triggered by a certain something you’re still able to sleep as you usually would, remain motivated to do things, and maintain your desire to eat. Depression, on the other hand, is associated with serious disruption of normal eating and sleeping patterns, as well as not wanting to get out of bed all day.

In sadness, you might feel regret or remorse for something you said or did, but you won’t experience any permanent sense of worthlessness or guilt as you might with depression. One of the diagnostic features of depression is this kind of self-diminishing, negative thought patterns.

Finally, self-harm and suicidal inclinations don’t arise from non-depressive sadness. Those struggling with severe depression may have thoughts of self-harm, death, or suicide, or have a suicide plan.

Effective treatment of depression is promised. Root cause of your depression will be found and tackled accordingly.

Detailed assessment, with a thorough evaluation of presentation and personal background will be done. As depression arises from cognitive distortions, main focus will be on cognitive behavioural therapy.

In various session patients will be taught to challenge their negative thoughts and eventually reducing their power on you. Through the course of therapy healthy coping mechanisms and personal self care activities are planned and practiced to cope with stressful situations and prevent relapse. Emotion regulation Techniques are learnt to express and channelize negative emotions in a productive manner thereby increasing positive mood and helps in treatment of depression.

Minimal required dose of medicine will be prescribed and Individuals and their family members will be psychoeducated about the illness and treatment plan.