Symptoms and Treatments of Major Depressive Disorder Essay

*Major Depression: persistent depressed mood or loss of interest in activities, causing significant impairment in daily life.

Major depressive disorder, we all have probably heard of it, but do we really know what is it is ? Major depressive disorder is “a mood disorder that causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest… major depressive disorder or clinical depression, affects how you feel, think and behave and can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems”(Mayo Clinic Staff). Having this disorder puts you in a very unstable position because you are constantly feeling depressed so it affects the way you think and feel and that can be very dangerous. Sometimes this happens to a person for one day, but put yourself in the shoes of someone who experiencing this for more than two weeks? When you have major depressive disorder, the signs of depression disorder can last for two weeks or more(myers646). This dis order must be treated immediately because “depression may make you feel as if life isn 't worth living”(Mayo Clinic Staff). Feeling this way can lead you to doing things that you can not take back such as committing suicide and sadly that can happen when you have major depressive disorder. Kiyohara and Yoshimasu conducted a research that showed that 90% of suicides have were dealing with major depressive disorder(qtd. in The World Health Organization). Throughout this paper I will be discussing the causes, symptoms and treatment when dealing with major depressive disorder.

Major Depressive Disorder or MDD is a very common clinical condition that affects millions of people every year. According to the Agency for Health Care Policy & Research, “ depression is under diagnosed & untreated by most medical doctors, despite the fact that it can almost always be treated successfully.

Major depressive disorder is a persistent state of hopeless depression (Myers 390). Major depressive disorder is characterized by one or more depression episodes.

Major Depressive Disorder is defined as a “moderate-to-severe mood disorder in which a person experiences only major depressive episodes but no hypomanic, manic, or mixed episodes” (Butcher, Hooley, & Mineka, 2014, p. 618). Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is also referred to Major Depression. MDD is also “characterized by a combination of symptoms that interfere with a person’s ability to work, sleep, study, eat, and enjoy once-pleasurable activities. Major depression is disabling and prevents a person from functioning normally. Some people may experience only a single episode within their lifetime, but more often a person may have multiple episodes” (National Instittute of Mental Health, 2014, p. 2)

Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar Disorder are both mental illnesses that are debilitating. Normal functioning becomes increasingly difficult as either disorder takes hold of the mind and impacts every facet of the patient’s life. With an increased risk of suicide, they can even lead to an early death. Studies continue on both genetic and environment influences in mental disorders, but neuroscientific research finds out more with each study about how the brain impacts our mental abilities and inabilities. As research opens doors, better treatments can be explored and developed with both medication and psychotherapy. Biological information on mental illness can also help remove the stigma associated with mental illness that tends to belittle the importance of treatment. The more individuals who seek treatment, the more lives who can be positively impacted and even saved. This paper will take a look at several studies that have been performed regarding Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar Disorder. Each study deals with biological issues and their impacts on mental illness.

Major Depression is often described in superficial terms based on the manifestation of symptoms but falling short of capturing the complexity existing within the intrinsic etiology of the disease. It is one of two classifications of mood disorders with the other being Bipolar Disorder which is also known as manic-depressive illness. Major depression is one of the most common mental disorders in the United States. The lifetime prevalence rate of depression is 16.2% of the population with a two-fold greater risk in women than men after adolescence (McCance, 2010). Signs and symptoms characteristic of Major Depression include sadness, irritability, significant weight gain or loss, insomnia, guilt, and suicide ideation. It is distinguishable from Bipolar Disorder in that it lacks symptoms of mania. Risk factors associated with depression are stress, comorbidities, life changes, and substance and/or alcohol abuse. It is important to understand the relative risk associated with these risk factors when determining treatment. For example, the relative risk between the substance abuse, depression, and suicide is evident in a recent analysis conducted by The National Survey on Drug Use and Health focusing on the suicidal thoughts and behavior among adults with substance dependence or abuse and adults with major depressive episode. Results indicated that adults 18 or older who had past year substance dependence or abuse were 12.6 percent more likely to

Major depressive disorder has caused many people to commit acts of insanity and has destroyed lives. It is defined as a mood disorder that will cause a constant sad feeling. This is because it affects how you think behave, and feel. these affects may lead to emotional problems and make you think that life is not worth living. It has been shown to affect twice as many women than men but is common for both genders at the ages of 25-44. It can effect about 10%-25% of women and 5%-12% of men. This disorder has many impacts on society as well. An example would be that people with Major depressive disorder may be caused to take more sick days and when they are actually at work, they tend to not do as well as their co-workers. There are some organizations

I will discuss the diagnostic issues and diagnoses with Major depressive disorder as a primary diagnosis and several other differential diagnoses. We will look at the etiology relationship problem between mom and daughter. We will take into account gender and race. Lastly we will discuss the prognostic treatment for the fictitious patient Dineo. Abnormal behavior is a behavior that diverges from what is projected as a normal standard which is outside the parameters of what is accepted in society. We ask ourselves when will look at a scenario of Jolene sitting in her classroom taping her fingers loud on the desk whilst her lecture is teaching, when he asks her to stop she continues even louder and roll her eyes at him with annoyance. Is this behavior seen as still in the realm of normal behavior? What is seen as normal behavior can be varied amongst different cultures and society. Behavior constitutes abnormalities because some behaviors that disturb social norms are expected to be labelled as abnormal because the not normal behavior that is observed outside the social constraints are classified as deviant. 1. According to Kleinman, (1988) normality and abnormality differs in culture as there are certain standards that are acceptable behavior norms if one behaves in a certain way that is outside the norms of their culture they are believed to show abnormal behavior as it infringes the rules of what is acceptable behavior in a certain culture, therefore reality is

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a very common diagnosis in the mental health field. It is important that clinicians understand MDD thoroughly as it is such a common diagnosis. Many clinicians will be faced with working with clients with a diagnosis of MDD at some point in their careers so it is important to review the criterion and study the diagnosis. Major Depression Disorder requires a distinct change in mood usually a transition into feelings of sadness and hopelessness. This is usually accompanied by several symptoms such as sleep disturbances, irritability, suicidal thoughts, physiological changes amongst other symptoms that will be later discussed in this paper. The presenting symptoms must last at least 2 weeks

Sarah presents with more than enough relevant symptoms and signs often associated with Criterion A, for a diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder with a recurrent episode. Based on the duration of her symptoms and the fact that she mentions having previous episodes of depression in the past, further reinforced this diagnosis. It is important to note that none of her symptoms are attributed to any medical conditions or etiology. With no current or past history of alcohol or substance abuse/use, it is clear that these symptoms and signs have caused a change of previous functioning as noticed by her sister Gloria. Sarah reported having a depressed mood with crying spells lasting all day, for more than several weeks. Her recurrent (Criterion A1) suicidal ideation without a specific plan are explained as she reported being close to taking all the pills in her medicine cabinet. In this depressed mood, she also reports having chronic feelings of profound emptiness. This essential feature of MDD, along with her self reporting of (Criterion A2) loss of appetite as evidenced by her not going out to buy groceries to eat, could have also contributed to her rapid weight loss. Sarah reported having no energy to do anything and only watching television in bed, which can also be seen as a sign that meets (Criterion A3) of extreme fatigue. Her reporting of not bathing for a week can also meets (Criterion A4) of markedly diminished interest

According to Arroll et al (2010), “80% of the population visits their family physicians each year, family physicians are in an excellent position to improve the diagnosis and management of depressive disorder. In the absence of systematic screening, family physicians miss at least 50% of cases of major depression (348).” This is evidence that a systematic screening is needed for screening of patients that have a family physician for major depression. There are several types of questionnaires used for screening of depression. One of the screening tools used to identify severities of depression is called the Patient Health Questionnaire 9 otherwise called the PHQ-9. According to Hinz et al (2016), “the PHQ-9 is a screening instrument with 9 items, developed to measure depression. For each item the patients are asked to assess how much they were bothered by the symptoms over the last two weeks. There are four answer options: not at all (0), several days (1), more than half of the days (2), and nearly every day (3). The sum score (0 to 27) indicates the degree of depression, with score of ≥5, ≥10, and ≥15 represents mild, moderate, and severe levels of depression (2-3).” This screening tool can be valuable within the primary care setting to identify those patients who may be suffering from depressive symptoms. Depression is defined by the National Institute of Mental Health (2016) as, “Depression (major depressive disorder or clinical depression) is a common but serious

The DSM-5 (APA 2013) includes many categories for the diagnostic criteria relating to neurodevelopmental, psychotic, affective, trauma and stressor-related, eating, sleep-wake, conduct, substance-related, neurocognitive, personality and numerous other disorders. Amongst these mental disorders, the 2014 survey conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS 2014), demonstrate that affective/mood, anxiety and substance-use disorders are most prevalent in Australians. Therefore, the diagnostic characteristics and treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD), panic disorder and alcoholism will be further explored. It is important to note that in conjunction with the DSM-5 for mental health assessment, primary care health professionals

Depression has been a part of our lives for as long as humans have been on the earth. Everyone has had days when nothing was going right. But it all depends with an individual how to handled this adversity and how depressed that person becomes.

Major depression — is an uncompromising manifestation that is affecting to perform an individual 's daily activity such as sleep, eat, exercise, work, and other leisure activities. The occurrences could be once or more than once of a person 's lifelong (NIMH, n.d.).