Types:

Many people are not aware of the several types of depression besides the unipolar depression which makes the patient feel melancholic and never feels high. Some of its types are:

Major depressive disorder: it is also known as clinical depression, major depression or unipolar depression which is the result of permanent low mood, loss of esteem and interest in normal enjoyable activities. It is the major disabling condition that affects the person’s daily activities and also its surroundings.

Dysthymia: it is a chronic depression but less severity than the major depressive disorder. It generally means ‘bad state of mind’ or ‘ill humor’. This depression lasts long but shows less serious symptoms and is mostly seen in persons who are alcoholic, drug addicts and anxiety disorders.

Bipolar disorder: it shows the presence of one or more episodes of abnormally elevated mood referred as mania or hypomania. Patients experiencing manic episodes will experience depressive episodes or mixed episode that shows both the symptoms of mania and depression. When the condition becomes too severe the patient may cause harm to other or themselves and may lead to suicidal attempt.

Cyclothymia: it falls between the bipolar disorder and the Dysthymia and do not show severe symptoms. Such patient shows euphoric highs, less sleep and boosts of energy in one phase at the same time their mood swings making them sad and feel helpless with no reasons.

Schizoaffective disorder: it is a form of neurobiological illness and such patients will show disorganised speech and thinking, depressive episodes in significant social or occupational dysfunction. It has two types of disorder like bipolar disorder and depressive type. The bipolar depressive disorder shows better prognosis than the depressive type and can result in residual effect as time passes.

Seasonal affective disorder: such patients are normal throughout the year but show depressive disorder during the winter or summer season repeatedly every year. They show several changes in their diet and their daily activities and they may also be depressed. The symptom shown in summer is called reverse affective disorders and they show heightened anxiety.

Adjustment disorder with depressed mood: it is a classification of mental disorder that is a psychological response from an identifiable stressor or a group of stressor that causes emotional symptoms which does not show specific disorder. It can be acute or chronic and can be diagnosed easily and are seen mostly in adult women.

Postpartum depression: it is also called as postnatal depression and its observer mostly in women due to the changes in hormones after birth in women and sometimes in men. It is mostly caused by sleep deprivation and it can be minor or severe but it lasts for 1-5 days and can be cured by sufficient sleep and taking rest.

Symptoms:

The symptoms of depression can occur due to several different situations. Life gives us experience of both negative and positive emotions that include happiness, sadness, excitement, frustration and many more while depression is prevalent among all age groups. Even a minor stress can make a person depressed and causes many fluctuations in their daily activities. Often women are depressed easily due to many reasons and men are depressed to some extent.

The symptoms are:

• Depressed mood: the feelings of extreme sadness, crying often without reason and dark feelings for every reason is observed.
• Reduced interest or pleasure: the lower interest in all daily activities and pleasurable activity is observed.
• Change in weight: extreme in weight is also indicative to depression. Every month about 5% of weight is lost or gained.
• Sleep disturbances: insomnia or excess sleep could also result in depression.
• Psychomotor agitation or retardation: the physical strength will be extremely slowed down and also being restless can cause depression.
• Fatigue: extreme fatigue and loss of energy can be noticed.
• Feelings of worthlessness or guilt: the patient may feel guilty for some work which they could not learn or coupe up and think themselves as being waste.
• Brain fog: the patient may have less ability to think and concentrate and remember or make decisions.
• Thoughts of death: the patient will have recurring thought of death or think or committing suicide with or without any specific plan.

Overcome depression:

The problem of depression should be diagnosed at an early stage to recover from it quickly. The relationship between doctor and patient should be deeper because the doctor should require spending more time to diagnose the actual reason for depression. The patient should reveal everything honestly to the doctors for finding to find the exact type of depression. Several tests which involve identifying the emotional and physical changes are done on patients to identify the reaction.

The diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorder (DSM) is a questionnaire used by many mental health professionals and physicians to diagnose mental disorders. The DSM is used by the professionals as a tool to communicate about the conditions of mental health and helps to conceptualise the symptom and can decide the exact type of depression the patient is suffering from. Thus DSM helps to do researches for clinical trials and also used as an educational tool.

Apart from several medical tests counseling, allopathic medicines are also available. There are also herbal treatments from nature which prevents from side effects and also need to spare less money. The herbal supplements increase our immune systems and also optimizes the brain for fighting with unusual thoughts.

The treatments taken are generally antidepressant medication, tricyclic drugs, monoamine oxidase inhibitors, selective serotonin reuptake medications, antipsychotic medication. Several such treatments are available that makes the patients to gain back their hope and confidence and can definitely overcome from depression.

Any conversation you have with your doctor about your depression will be treated in the most strictest confidence, but if there is any major risk of you harming yourself or others then your doctor will have no choice but to break this rule and inform a family member or carer to reduce that risk.