Depression

Depression

The depression is one of the psychological disorders most frequent in France. According to studies, 10 to 25% of the women and 5 to 12% of the men are likely to present a major depression during their life. Since the Seventies, the depression tends to being more frequent. A depression can occur at any age, in the children as at the old subjects.

The depression generates a painful modification of mood and a deceleration of the mental and driving activity. The suffering individual of this disorder is sad and loses his usual tonicity. They are the most traditional symptoms there, but they can be very different, more discrete, and also of different types, with especially of the demonstrations physics, in particular of the chronic pains.

Recurring symptoms

The person is rather often in a state softening and irascible. Its interest for the things of the life decreases, it crushes black, cries and ruminates obsessional thoughts. Its food and its sleep can be disturbed. With that a car devalorization is added: the depressive one does not have any more regard of itself and feels sometimes an excessive feeling of guilt. In its daily newspaper, its concentration and its decisional capacity are reduced. With time, and in the absence of treatment, the symptoms are worsening. The sleep disorders become increasingly important and contribute to reduce the diurnal activities. The depressive one feels even more badly in its skin. Sometimes the life seems so difficult to him and the so insurmountable tests that suicide attempts are to be feared.

Symptoms of a physical nature can also occur: like a chronic slimming, or pains (often dosrso-lumbar, so of course the medical examination did not reveal any particular organic problem).

A depression requires an effective and serious assumption of responsibility. One (too much) great number of people commit suicide, very often they suffered from a depression not detected or badly dealt with.

Causes of a depression

The depression results from the combination of several hereditary, biochemical, social factors. The environmental economic situation, a stressing life intervene too.

Events traumatisants, such as the early loss of a relative, a grave disease, professional, family conflicts can also contribute to loneliness, alienation and thus be at the origin of a depression. Certain individuals also have a genetic predisposition. Those to which the close relations suffer or suffered from a depression, have more risks to develop themselves a depression.
Research showed that the depression could be due to an imbalance of the “chemistry” of the brain, in particular to a fall of the manufacture of certain neuro-transmitters such as serotonin and the dopamine. Their deficiencies cause a reduction in the appetite, a loss of the sleep, energy and pleasure. This research on neurotransmitters should make it possible to discover other explanations to this disease.

The seasonal factors are also to take into account. The rate of depression is higher during the winter months, period or the sunning is weakest.

The treatment is necessary

There exist especially two great forms of treatment: drugs and psychotherapies.

The antidepressants are prescribed for all the forms of depression. They have a good effectiveness in the event of major depression. The drugs of new generation are tolerated better than the old ones. They can – seldom – involve side effects (headaches, migraine, acouphenes, hypothyroïdie…). The patient must be supervised from a medical point of view by taking his treatment, especially the first days and first weeks. It is necessary to await fifteen to twenty days to note the beneficial effects of the antidepressants. The treatment is generally prescribed during six months at one year.

In complement of the medicamentous treatment, it is advised to carry out a psychotherapy which has virtues liberators. The behavioral and cognitive therapy can be very constructive. It makes it possible the individual to restick his personality and to identify the origin of its depression.

A generally favorable evolution

This evolution is variable and function of the personality of each one, but if the assumption of responsibility is well carried out, with a medical monitoring and psychological serious, one arrives to good performances. Thus, an episode of major depression can be followed by a complete return to the normal. However among certain patients, the symptoms perdurent or can reappear gradually with the stop of the treatment.

For the entourage, it can be difficult to live with a person suffering from a depression. The person is sometimes in the refusal, or a “logic” of thought where all is dark, where it is not included/understood… what for the close relations is then very heavy!