Depression is a common and serious medical illness that can have a negative impact on how you feel, think, and act. It can range from mild to severe, and there are several types of depression that can affect people. Major depressive disorder is the classic type of depression, where a dark mood consumes everything and you lose interest in activities that are usually pleasurable. Symptoms of this type of depression include difficulty sleeping, changes in appetite or weight, loss of energy, and feeling worthless.
Thoughts of death or suicide may occur. Persistent depressive disorder (formerly known as dysthymia) is a type of mild and long-lasting depression. People suffering from dysthymia experience symptoms that are less severe than those experienced by patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). Because the symptoms of dysthymia last so long and may not have a major impact on your life, you may not even realize you have the condition.
Bipolar disorder is a type of depression in which a patient oscillates between periods of abnormally elevated mood (mania) and depressive episodes. When you're in the low phase, you'll have symptoms of major depression. Since bipolar disorder includes periods of mania as well as depression, treatment is different from MDD, which does not include mania. This helps prevent the intense ups and downs associated with bipolar disorder.
Seasonal affective disorder is a period of major depression that occurs most often during the winter months, when days get shorter and you get less and less sunlight. It usually disappears in spring and summer. Women who have major depression in the weeks and months after childbirth may have peripartum depression. About 1 in 10 men also experience depression in the peripartum period.
Antidepressant medications may help in a similar way to treating major depression that is not related to childbirth. A combination of antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs can treat psychotic depression. ECT can also be an option. Traditional antidepressants are not always recommended as first-line treatments for bipolar depression because there is no evidence that these drugs are more useful than a placebo (a sugar pill) for treating depression in people with bipolar disorder. In addition, for a small percentage of people with bipolar disorder, some traditional antidepressants may increase the risk of causing a high phase of the disease or speed up the frequency of having more episodes over time. Medicines may not work for some people with psychotic depression.
Therefore transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is sometimes recommended. EMT treatment stimulates prefrontal cortex cells with electromagnetic pulses. Other more recently introduced types of brain stimulation therapies used to treat drug-resistant depression include repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (RTMS) and vagus nerve stimulation (VNS). Talk therapy can also help you recognize what triggers mania and depression and help you better manage your symptoms. When grief and depression coincide, grief is more severe and lasts longer than grief without depression. If you experience cognitive or mood changes that last more than a few weeks, it's a good idea to contact your doctor or see a mental health specialist to help determine possible causes. Not only is depression difficult to endure, it is also a risk factor for heart disease and dementia.
