How to treat depression?
Major depressive disorder is characterized by one or more major depressive episodes (at least 2 weeks of depressed mood or loss of interest, accompanied by at least four additional symptoms of depression).
Depression
Diagnostic criteria for major depressive episode are:
1. Depressed mood most of the day;
2. Marked reduction of interest or pleasure in all or almost all activities, most of the day;
3. Significant weight loss, although you do not follow a diet or weight gain (eg., A change of more than 5% of body weight in a month) or decrease or increase in appetite;
4. Insomnia or hypersomnia;
5. Psychomotor agitation or sluggishness;
6. Fatigue or low energy;
7. Feelings of worthlessness or inappropriate guilt (which may be delirious), not only autorepros or guilt about that to be suffering;
8. Diminishing ability to think or concentrate or indecisiveness;
9. Recurrent thoughts of death (not just fear of dying), suicidal ideation without a plan, or a suicide attempt or a specific plan for committing suicide.
Cognitive psychotherapy – behavior based on the premise that depression results from lack of logic in the way patients think about themselves, about the outside world and the future, which cause them to adopt self-locking and self-destructive behaviors.
Automatic negative thoughts in depression have their origins in the attitudes acquired in early childhood and later. These are the main themes sense of failure, rejection by others, exaggerating the difficulties, high personal standards.
Objective cognitive psychotherapy – behavior is to counteract the thoughts, memories and negative beliefs that keep depression and are vulnerable to future depressive episodes. The patient is taught to think more rationally and to find solutions to his problems.
Psychotherapy is the preferred treatment of depression, a finding which is detached after several meta – analysis, combined therapy (psychotherapy and antidepressant medication), which is the currently used to treat depression.
Drug therapy should only be a last alternative, because there is no effective long-term, meaning that after cessation of treatment, many symptoms return.
Before starting treatment with antidepressants, consult the doctor and patient information on adverse effects of these drugs, including their prospects.
People are not aware of rigorous data on antidepressant medicines and especially the fact that they are tested on a large number of patients, but for a short period of time. The issues presented are only a general guide and specific methods of treatment each patient should be determined only in collaboration with specialists.
