Diagnosing Patients With Psychological Disorders: Spotting Depression

In the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic & Statistical Manual (APA, 2000) the symptoms of depression are: loss of interest or enjoyment in activities; changing in weight and appetite; changes to sleep pattern; loss of energy; feeling worthless or guilty; suicidal thoughts; poor concentration and being either agitated or slowed up.

A major depressive episode is not a disorder in itself, but rather more of a description or symptoms of part of a disorder most often depressive disorder or bipolar. A person suffering from a major depressive episode must have a depressed mood or a loss of interest in daily activities consistently for a minimum of a two-week time span (Psych Central, 2013). In diagnosing the mood must reflect a change from the person’s normal mood. A person’s daily activities and functions, such as work, social routines and friends, education, family, and relationships must also have been negatively impacted by the change in their mood. A major depressive episode is also identified by presence of five or more of the following symptoms. The patient can show signs of significant weight loss or weight gain even not dieting or trying to lose or gain weight. The patient will also display a change in appetite almost everyday, either with an increase or a decrease in their normal eating habits. The weight change is typically set at an increase or decrease in weight of more than 5% per month. The patient will display a depressed mood almost the entire day and this sadness, emptiness, loneliness, crying, and distant is observed by others or indicted by the patient, is typically

Depression is a common mental disorder, characterized by sadness, loss of interest or pleasure, feelings of guilt or low self-worth, disturbed sleep or appetite, feelings of tiredness, and poor concentration. Depression can be long-lasting or recurrent, substantially impairing an individual’s ability to function at work or school or cope with daily

Depression is characterized by depressed mood, loss of interest or pleasure, changes in weight or appetite, insomnia or hypersomnia, psychomotor agitation, loss of energy, feelings of worthlessness or guilt, difficulty concentrating, or recurrent thoughts of death. A diagnosis of major depressive disorder requires the presence of five or more symptoms during the same two-week period and

Research by Sanchez-Villegas et al (2008) supports the ‘predictive validity’ of depression diagnosis. They assessed the validity of the Structured Clinical Interview to diagnose depression, finding that 74.2% of those originally diagnosed as depressed had been accurately

The symptoms of depression are difficulty sleeping or oversleeping, hopelessness, lack of concentration, loss of interest in their usual hobbies and thoughts of suicide.

Depression can affect your ability to sleep, eat and communicate like a person without depression. This is a common but serious illness and it may be treated.

The pertinent findings will be explained, and their implications on future anti-depressants will be addressed.

In order to be clinically diagnosed with depression, the patient must have exhibited this feeling as well as a number of symptoms for a period of at least two weeks. Currently it is estimated that approximately 85% of those affected can be successfully treated by a physician (Holtz, Stokes, 1138).

Depression is defined by the DSM-IV as a mental disorder characterized by sustained depression of mood, anhedonia, sleep and appetite disturbances, feelings of worthlessness, guilt, and hopelessness. Depressive symptoms such as the mere inability to experience pleasure and loss of energy persisting for longer than two weeks are usually enough to indicate an affective disorder (Hirschfeld 2014). There are significant variations in presentations and diagnosis criteria, but regardless of the classification of depressive states (Major (Unipolar), Bipolar, Dysthymia, Atypical, SAD, Postpartum), it is agreed upon that pharmacological interventions are sometimes required: to alleviate debilitating symptoms and improve patients’ quality of life. The interest in depression medications reflects the gravity of the disease i.e. its ability to psychologically impair lives and lead to suicide.

As the literature remains inconclusive as to the relation between current major treatment modalities and depressive disorder, and given the extremities of the potential dangers of antidepressant medications, it is apparent that there is a need to develop new interventions, which show greater efficacy, safety, and acceptability.

The first step to treating many of these new cases of depression is the prescription and use of antidepressant medication, however this has cause a mass flooding of our society with unnecessary prescription drugs. Due to the ease of treatment, primarily with prescription drugs, and the large range of severity in depression is often over diagnosed, adding to the problem.

Hook: The recognition of depression as a common mental illness should lead to studies regarding what form of treatment is best for a patient, but antidepressants seem to be the unimpressive go-to.

and others feel so depressed it that is as if they have 'gone beyond crying'.

     People who usually experience depression, can seem fine. But there are many key signs to show that they are depressed. Such as, change in school performance, eating habits change, constant unhappiness, low self esteem, guilt, social isolation, inability to concentrate, irritable or angered easily, or has a severe lost of energy.