Mental Illness

Mental Illness

Depression is a disease that was formally known as melancholia. In Ancient Greece the disease was thought to be caused by an imbalance in the four basic bodily fluids. The regulation of depression probably didn’t start until around the 1800’s. Depression affects over 14 million adults in America today.

The diagnosis of depression consists of loss of interest in activities that the person once enjoyed or having a depressed mood. There are 4 symptoms that should be present every day over a 2 week period and they are significant weight loss or weight gain not as a result of dieting, insomnia the majority of the time, the feeling of restlessness to the point that other people notice, severe fatigue or loss of energy, feeling of worthlessness or inappropriate guilt, not having the ability to concentrate and being indecisive and possible recurrent thoughts of death or suicide.

It was not until approximately 50 years ago that depression became a serious topic. Then they treated depression with psychoanalysis but now there are more modern methods. There are millions of Americans that are being treated commonly with antidepressants.

There are many myths and misconceptions about depression. Some of the myths attached to depression are that it only exists in the western industrialized world, depression is due to the influence of magic, sorcery or witchcraft. Another myth is that depression cannot be treated the same way other diseases are. There are many additional myths that go along with depression.

There are many studies about depression, researchers have discovered associations between clinical depression and the function of three primary neurotransmitters of the 30 or so identified. These three neurotransmitters function in the area of the brain that regulates emotions, reactions to stress, and the physical drives of sleep, appetite and sexuality. The limbic system contains the neurotransmitters and receives a great deal of attention from depression researchers. There are theories about how neurotransmitters are related to a person’s mood are based upon the effects that antidepressant medications can have when relieving depression in some people. It is thought that that the medications are effective because they regulate the amount of specific neurotransmitters in the brain. It has been shown that many people who are depressed have low levels of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine.

Some antidepressants can increase the level of norepinephrine in the brain, and subsequently relieve depressive symptoms. One of the reasons that the effects of neurotransmitters are not clear-cut is due to the fact that antidepressant medications do not work for everyone. It seems to come down to a person with depression and that antidepressant medications work for many however, they are