Depression & Mood Disorders

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Depression is an illness, a medical condition. It significantly affects the way someone feels, causing a persistent lowering of mood. Depression is often accompanied by a range of other physical and psychological symptoms that can interfere with the way a person is able to function in their everyday life. The symptoms of depression generally react positively to treatment.

Depression has a variety of symptoms and will affect everyone in different ways. Symptoms include:

• Feeling extremely sad or tearful
• Disturbances to normal sleep patterns
• Loss of interest and motivation
• Feeling worthless or guilty
• Loss of pleasure in activities
• Anxiety
• Changes in appetite or weight
• Loss of sexual interest
• Physical aches and pains
• Impaired thinking or concentration

There are a number of possible causes of depression, including:

• Depression can be a reaction to a distressing situation like loss or stress (reactive depression). Some women experience depression following the birth of a child (post-natal depression)
• Depression can be part of an illness like bipolar disorder in which the person experiences extreme moods without any reason –very high and very-excited or very low and depressed
• Depression can be unrelated to any outside cause, but associated with a chemical imbalance in the brain (endogenous depression). Sometimes the person may be affected so much that he or she experiences the symptoms of psychosis and is unable to distinguish what is real
• Children and teenagers can also become depressed. This can show itself in different ways to depression in adults, and they are best helped by a doctor who is a specialist in this area