Contents
Depression is a heterogeneous disease entity – its individual types may cause slightly different clinical symptoms. The differences concern e.g. severity of symptoms and the duration of their persistence. Typically, each form of the disease is associated with a different dominant symptom, but there are so-called core symptoms – which combine all types of depressive disorders.
Basic symptoms of depression
Each type of depression is associated with a different clinical picture, but a certain group of ailments is common to all types of the disease – the so-called core symptoms of depression. These include depressed mood, which consists of a pervasive, chronic feeling of sadness or depression that can last for weeks. Depression is always manifested by anhedonia – the inability to feel pleasure, satisfaction, joy. It is a kind of indifference in which the patient becomes unable to feel any emotions, both positive and negative. The third core symptom includes loss of strength, vital energy and exhaustion, which lead to a gradual, progressive limitation of daily activities.
How else does depression manifest itself?
Other symptoms also help to recognize depression. In the course of the disease, depressive thinking usually occurs – thought processes are slower and slower, there are problems with memory, concentration, and even making the simplest decisions. In addition, patients build a depressive picture of the world – a distorted picture, inconsistent with reality. In many cases, it is associated with low self-esteem, self-blame, and an inadequate sense of guilt. Suicidal thoughts and tendencies occur in depression, especially in advanced, left to itself and untreated. The patient believes that he is not needed by anyone, he loses the sense of existence; in his eyes, the future appears as an endless series of suffering. This is a very dangerous stage of the disease that requires immediate specialist help.
In addition, patients are accompanied by a feeling of unjustified fear, drowsiness during the day, sleep disorders, disturbances in motor activity, loss of appetite may also occur, which leads to the resignation of meals and weight loss. In some cases (e.g. in seasonal depression), the appetite increases significantly (especially for sweets) and results in weight gain.
Depressive disorders – types and methods of treatment
There are the following types of depression:
- episodic – with a clear onset and symptoms lasting less than 2 years
- recurrent – depressive episodes with a tendency to recur
- chronic (dysthymia) – lasting at least 2 years, with remission shorter than 2 months
- post-schizophrenic – occurring after psychoses, including schizophrenic symptoms
- seasonal – associated with shorter days and shortages of sunlight in the autumn and winter
There are different methods of treating depressive disorders – they are selected individually. Most often, pharmacological treatment (antidepressants) is combined with psychotherapy. However, the choice of therapy depends on many factors, including the type of depression, the severity of symptoms, the patient’s lifestyle, the course of previous treatments, and the general somatic condition.