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Depression & Mental Health FAQs
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated 40 million Americans living today will suffer from major depressive illness during their lives. Seasonal affective disorder is major depression that appears in the fall or winter and goes away in spring, thought to be caused by lack of sunlight.
Postpartum depression occurs within four weeks of a women giving childbirth. Most new mothers suffer from some form of the �baby blues.� Postpartum depression, by contrast, is major depression, thought to be triggered by changes in hormonal flows associated with childbirth. Catatonic depression is a rare form of major depression characterized by (at least two): Stupor, excessive motor activity, extreme negativism, peculiarities in voluntary movement, and repetition of other people's words or actions. - mcmanweb.com
Psychotic depression is a rare form of depression characterized by delusions or hallucinations, such as believing you are someone you are not and hearing voices.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, approximately 18.8 million American adults, or about 9.5 percent of the US population age 18 and older in a given year, have a depressive disorder. Depression is a chronic illness that exacts a significant toll on
America's health and productivity. It affects more than 21 million
American children and adults annually and is the leading cause of
disability in the United States for individuals ages 15 to 44.
Lost productive time among U.S. workers due to depression is estimated
to be in excess of $31 billion per year. Depression frequently
co-occurs with a variety of medical illnesses such as heart disease,
cancer, and chronic pain and is associated with poorer health status
and prognosis. It is also the principal cause of the 30,000 suicides
in the U.S. each year. In 2004, suicide was the 11 th leading cause of death in the United States, third among individuals 15-24.
According to the World Health Organization, depression is presently on track to becoming the world's second-most disabling disease (after heart disease) by the year 2020. Depression is responsible for some $87 billion a year in lost productivity in the US (a conservative estimate), and according to Bank One, is responsible for most lost work days in its employees after pregnancy and childbirth. Additionally, one million people worldwide die by their own hand, most as a result of a mood disorder. Finally, the linkage between depression and a host of physical illnesses makes it arguably the world's greatest killer.
Research presented at the 56th Annual Conference of the Canadian
Psychiatric Association shows a marked link between bipolar disorder
and migraines. The odds of migraine in persons with bipolar disorder were 40% higher than the general population. Data
obtained from 36,984 people aged 15 and over, who screened positive for
manic or depressive episodes with migraine, were compared against those
who screened positive for mania but who didn�t suffer from migraines. Amongst
males, 14.9% of those with manic episodes were also diagnosed with
migraines compared with 5.8% of the general population. Amongst
females, 34.7% had both migraines and bipolar disorder compared with
14.7% who only had migraines.unquote.gif While the research was
skewed towards persons who were already diagnosed with bipolar
disorders, what does it mean for people who suffer from migraines but
who may have an undiagnosed bipolar disorder?
Migraines and headaches aren�t fully understood but the manifestations are very real and debilitating for their sufferers: Throbbing pain Nausea Heightened sensitivity to light or sound Seeing dots, wavy lines, flashing lights, or blind spots Difficulty with speech, sensation, or movement
An estimated 2.1 million
American adolescents have experienced major depression within the last
year, according to a new comprehensive government study. Researchers
surveyed more than 67,000 young people ages 12 to 17 and found that one
in 12 had suffered from serious depression in the previous year.Nearly
13 percent of girls had struggled with depression, compared to less
than 5 percent of boys. Odds of depression increased with age -- just 4
percent of 12-year-olds experienced depression but that climbed to 11
percent for older teens.
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Featured Topics
Featured Topics
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Seasonal affective disorder (SAD)
Seasonal affective disorder (also called SAD) is a type of depression
that occurs at the same time every year. If you're like most people
with seasonal affective disorder, your symptoms start in the fall and
may continue into the winter months, sapping your energy and making you
feel moody. Less often, seasonal affective disorder causes depression
in the spring or early summer.
Don't brush off that yearly feeling as simply a case of the "winter
blues" or a seasonal funk that you have to tough out on your own — you
may have seasonal affective disorder. Treatment for seasonal affective
disorder includes light therapy (phototherapy), psychotherapy and
medications. Addressing the problem can help you keep your mood and
motivation steady throughout the year.
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There
is often a social stigma associated with clinical depression, that a
person who suffers from depression has a certain negative personality
or is a loner, etc. But this stigma is quite far from the biological
truth. By understanding the biological mechanism of depression and the
role of serotonin and the medications used to treat it, SSRIs,
(selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) can help to dismantle this
notion.
You see, there are brain chemicals called neurotransmitters
associated with depression, including the neurotransmitter serotonin
and some research suggests that abnormalities in neurotransmitter
activity affect mood and behavior as in depression. What SSRIs do is
relieve symptoms of depression by blocking the reabsorption (reuptake)
of serotonin by certain nerve cells in the brain, leaving more
serotonin around in the brain. This enhances neurotransmission, the
sending of nerve impulses and improves mood. SSRIs are called selective
because they seem to affect only serotonin, not other
neurotransmitters.
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Antidepressants May Be Beneficial To Older
Adults Who are
Suffering From Anxiety
Jan. 20, 2009 - Anxious older adults may benefit from antidepressants.
Many older adults worry — a lot. Almost one in 10 Americans over age 60
suffer from an anxiety disorder that causes them to worry excessively
about normal things — like health, finances, disability and family.
Although antidepressant drugs known as selective serotonin reuptake
inhibitors (SSRIs) can improve anxiety symptoms in younger adults,
little has been known about their effects in older people.
In the largest study of
SSRIs in older people with anxiety disorders, a team of psychiatric
researchers found the drug escitalopram (Lexapro®) improved anxiety
symptoms and quality of life. Results are reported in the Jan. 21 issue
of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
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New Year's Resolutions Of 2009  It's that time of year again to make those promises to ourselves that
we hope to keep in the New Year. Franklin Covey releases results from a
New Year's resolution survey every year in December. For 2009, here are
the top 5 New Year's resolutions:
1.) Get out of debt or save money.
2.) Lose weight.
3.) Develop a healthy habit (like healthy eating or exercise)
4.) Get organized.
5.) Spend more time with family and friends.
Unsurprisingly, the top 5 New Year's resolutions for 2009 are pretty
much the same as for 2008. It's also not surprising that two out of
five have to do with health and fitness! While we appreciate the work
that Franklin Covey puts into getting this data, we do think they lump
quite a bit together in order to abbreviate. The bigger question,
though, than WHAT people are resolved to accomplish in 2009 is HOW should you make your New Year's resolutions so they stick until 2010 and beyond? |
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- By Lindsay
- Published 10/31/2008
- Featured Topics
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Friday, October 31, 2008
Seasonal Affective Disorder (S.A.D.)
It is the end of Daylight Savings Time
and the beginning of shorter days and longer nights. For many people,
especially women, this annual change of seasons also triggers a change
in mood, leading to feelings of fatigue, depression and anxiety — more
severe than just winter blues. 
According to the American Academy
of Family Physicians, about half a million Americans suffer from
winter-onset depression, or Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD.
Although more common in northern regions where the winters are longer,
the condition plagues residents in southern regions, too. |
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Is there an association between a Mother's Mood and Her Baby's Sleep Patterns?
Babies
born to depressed mothers may have much more chaotic sleep patterns
early in life.
Babies
born to depressed mothers may have much more chaotic sleep patterns
early in life. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Michigan Health
System)
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — If there's one thing that everyone knows about
newborn babies, it's that they don't sleep through the night, and
neither do their parents. But in fact, those first six months of life
are crucial to developing the regular sleeping and waking patterns,
known as circadian rhythms, that a child will need for a healthy future.
It is crucial to developing the regular sleeping and waking
patterns, known as circadian rhythms, that a child will need for a
healthy future.
Some children may start life with the sleep odds stacked against
them, though, say University of Michigan sleep experts who study the
issue. They will present data from their study next week at the
European Sleep Research Society meeting in Glasgow, Scotland.
Babies whose mothers experienced depression any time before they
became pregnant, or developed mood problems while they were pregnant,
are much more prone to having chaotic sleep patterns in the first
half-year of life than babies born to non-depressed moms, the team has
found.
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A tribute to the great American novelist who left us all a little less alone.
Sep. 14, 2008 |
He talked about how difficult it was to be a novelist in a world
seething with advertisements and entertainment and knee-jerk
knowingness and facile irony. He wrote about the maddening
impossibility of scrutinizing yourself without also scrutinizing
yourself scrutinizing yourself and so on, ad infinitum, a vertiginous
spiral of narcissism -- because not even the most merciless self-
examination can ignore the probability that you are simultaneously
congratulating yourself for your soul-searching, that you are posing.
He tried so hard to be sincere and to attend to the world around him
because he was excruciatingly aware of how often we are merely
"sincere" and "attentive" and all too willing to leave it at that. He
spoke of the discipline and of the abrading, daily labor such efforts
require because the one imperative that runs throughout all of his work
is the intimate connection between humility and wisdom.
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"Congratulations to Michael Phelps for winning eight Olympic gold
medals. I applaud him and his mother for speaking about AD/HD. Mr.
Phelps shows that it's possible to go beyond coping with AD/HD and
truly achieve. His candor addresses stigma and, hopefully, will inspire
others to seek help," said AACAP President Robert Hendren, D.O.
"It's important for people living with AD/HD to pursue interests they
enjoy and at which they excel," explains Marie Paxson, CHADD's board
president. "Phelps's success demonstrates that being a part of a
supportive family, setting goals, engaging in enjoyable activities, and
receiving positive feedback are all important in building self-esteem.
Phelps is clearly an exceptionally talented athlete and a source of
pride for the millions of people affected by AD/HD."
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New research is challenging the assumption that the world's most common
mental ailment is just a chemical imbalance in the brain.
"Death was now a daily presence, blowing over me in cold gusts.
Mysteriously and in ways that are totally remote from normal
experience, the gray drizzle of horror induced by depression takes on
the quality of physical pain. But it is not an immediately identifiable
pain, like that of a broken limb. It may be more accurate to say that
despair, owing to some evil trick played upon the sick brain by the
inhabiting psyche, comes to resemble the diabolical discomfort of being
imprisoned in a fiercely overheated room. And because no breeze stirs
this caldron, because there is no escape from the smothering
confinement, it is entirely natural that the victim begins to think
ceaselessly of oblivion." —William Styron
Melancholy is a fertile muse. No sooner had William Styron become the
poet laureate of depression after describing his bout with madness in
Darkness Visible when all manner of confessions followed. Mike Wallace.
Art Buchwald. Dick Cavett lined up to disclose their own struggles with
the disabling disorder. It quickly became acceptable, even chic, to
publicly confide vulnerability to depression.
At the same time, the world was being made safe for depression, or at
least public revelations of it, by another development, the 1988 advent
of the so-called SSRIs—Prozac, Paxil and related drugs believed to
specifically combat depression by beefing up serotonin and other
neurotransmitters that ferry signals between nerve cells. The wild
success of psychiatrist Peter D. Kramer's thoughtful Listening to
Prozac generated not only new respect for the effectiveness of Prozac
but new appreciation of the disorder it was intended to treat.
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A Potpourri of Mental Health Articles
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Depression & Mental Health FAQs 2
What is Clinical Depression? Clinical
depression can affect your body, mood, thoughts, and behavior. It can
change your eating habits, how you feel and think about things, your
ability to work and study, and how you interact with people. Clinical
depression is not a passing mood, a sign of personal weakness or a
condition that can be willed away. Clinically depressed people cannot
"pull themselves together" and get better. Depression can be
successfully treated by a mental health professional or certain health
care providers. With the right treatment, 80 percent of those who seek
help get better. And many people begin to feel better in just a few
weeks.
Depression a Big Factor in Poor Health World Health Organization Finds Depression Often Goes Untreated By Salynn Boyles WebMD Medical News Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD Sept.
6, 2007 -- Depression has a greater impact on overall health than
arthritis, diabetes, angina, and asthma, but it all too often goes
unrecognized and untreated, a report from the World Health Organization
(WHO) suggests. more... Depression a Big Factor in Poor Health
For Additional Information About Depression Write To: The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)6001 Executive Boulevard, Room 8184, MSC 9663 Bethesda, MD 20892-9663
For free brochures on depression and its treatment call: 1-800-421-4211. or visit: http://www.nimh.nih.gov
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Depression Forums would like to hear from you!
Depression Forums would like to hear from you!
Mental illness affects one in seventeen Americans.
We
would like to invite you to share your story about
your Depression, as breaking the silence will help us to break open the
stigma surrounding mental health that keeps people from getting the
care that continues misunderstandings about those affected by mental
health disorders.
There is nothing better than to speak out, tell your story and get the word out!
There is hope!
Together, we can help ourselves and others.
Warm Regards,
~Lindsay and The Depression Forums Administration Staff
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