Understanding Depression

Understanding Depression Depression is a medical illness in which a person has a persistent feeling of sadness and hopelessness. In the United States, depression accounts for the majority of all mental hospital admissions, but clinicians still believe it to be underdiagnosed and undertreated (WebMD 2013). The National Institute of Mental Health (2009) estimates that depression costs Americans about $83 billion each year including the costs of hospitalization, therapy and lost productivity. All depression types are not the same. Major depression, also known as clinical depression, and chronic depression, also known as dysthymia, are the most common types. But there are also other types of depression with unique signs, symptoms, and treatment. People who suffer from depression may feel worthless, lack of appetite, withdraw from friends and family, and have difficulty sleeping, become agitated and lethargic. In severe cases, they may also have psychotic distortions. Most worrisome of all, suicide claims one in 50 depression sufferers (WebMD, 2012). Significantly, a person with depression faces a greater risk of suicide because in the depth of depressive despair, he may have no energy or will to do anything, much less carry out a plan for suicide. Some causes of depression include genetic, where depression often run in the families Further indication of biological basis for depression comes from the favorable responses that many patients with depression have to take drugs that affect the brain’s neurotransmitters and dopamine (L. Johnson & V. McCann 2009). Evidence also connects depression with lower brain wave activity in the left frontal lope and in few cases, depression may be caused by viral infection. Such evidence leads some observers to view depression as a collection of disorders having variety of causes and involving many parts of the brain. Lack of sunlight is said to be another cause of depression that commonly appears during the long,