Diagnosing Depression: How to Tell if Someone Needs Help

Depression is an illness. It’s a serious topic, and treatment of depression may require the help of a specialist. The problem, however, is that a person is often extremely attentive only to his physical health, ignoring the mental symptoms. And it’s important for us, the loved ones, not to overlook them.

The illness is relatively young, and at the moment it’s increasingly being diagnosed. No, that doesn’t mean it didn’t exist before. Just now, people have become more attentive and educated, a huge flow of information is crashing down on us, and the pace of life has accelerated.

Such factors as change of any conditions (loss of job, illness, death of close person), change of seasons (depressions happen less often in a sunny season), hereditary (if there are first line relatives suffering from mental disorders), standard of living, financial situation, relations in the family, problems at work and others influence development of anxious and depressive conditions… Sometimes these factors are objectively not so terrible, but a person subjectively perceives them differently.

The Main Symptoms

A bad mood (or often bouncing), depression, lethargy, anxious thoughts, guilt, loss of appetite, interest in life, insomnia and even suicidal thoughts. You could say it happens to all of us, but with depression this condition prevails for more than two weeks.

Ways to Help You Suspect Something Is Wrong

Most often these are different tests that describe your condition recently.

The Beck Anxiety Scale includes 21 symptoms, you need to determine the frequency of occurrence of each of them. If you are experiencing tremors in your legs and hands, fever, unsteadiness, wobbly gait, unreasonable fear and other symptoms, don’t be lazy and determine your anxiety level. Just in case. If you have medium to high levels of anxiety, you should see a specialist.

The best-known way to diagnose it is the Beck Depression Questionnaire, in which you have to choose statements that are close to the person’s condition for the last week. The questionnaire allows you to determine the degree of depression from mild to severe.

The third method of diagnosis is the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). The 2-part test (anxiety diagnosis and depression diagnosis) will determine clinical and subclinical anxiety and depression.

The Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS), consisting of 21 statements, can be used to assess treatment, and a person determines the severity of each statement The Zing Scale and Major Depression Questionnaire can also be used to self-assess depression.

Mental and Physical Health

Yes, they are related. Depression can exacerbate chronic illnesses, worsen overall health and quality of life in general, and vice versa. Try not to run either of them.

Treatment and Prevention

They depend on the severity of the disease. If the symptoms are mild (which is the condition we are most often confronted with), treatment may help:

• Sleep hygiene (get up at the same time, follow the regime).
• Hygiene of work and rest (it’s better to take a vacation, try something new, like playing at treasureislandslot.com/ or cooking unusual meals, change the environment and distractions).
• Moderate physical activity (morning exercise, jogging, yoga, skiing, skating, walking outdoors, swimming).
• Hobby activities (embroidery, knitting, puzzles).
• Meditation, massage, taking aroma baths and other relaxation procedures.
• Work with a therapist.

At medium and severe degrees, the doctor connects drug therapy, usually tricyclic antidepressants and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. The effect of these drugs doesn’t come overnight, it accumulates after 2-3 weeks of use. Medicinal treatment is connected to the ineffectiveness of others. Drugs have serious contraindications and side effects, so they are prescribed only by a doctor and are available at the pharmacy with a prescription.

It will be better if the person eliminates exposure to the factor that led to the depression. In the case of noisy neighbors, move out, in the case of a boozy husband, move out, etc.