Author: Martin

Every woman reaches a certain period in her life when she feels she is getting older and her body shows all signs of this process. Except usual ageing of the organism, women experience such physiological process as menopause.

Menopause is a normal physiological process in certain age in all women. So, having reached the certain age, every woman passes this process that changes her further life. Menopause is one of physiological processes affecting the whole organism. This process is called climax that means from Greek a ‘step’ to a new life because it is a period of numerous changes. Menopause is characterized by female estrogen hormones development disorder. The doctors call this process the full termination of menstrual periods. During menopause the hormonal background is changed, ovaries and hypophysis functionality is decreased leading to menstrual periods termination, change of vagina mucous (dryness), and uterus reduction.

Menopause, except hormonal background change, is characterized by the most unpleasant property, ageing. Really, menopause is a synonym of ageing of women. Menopause starts usually in women at the age of 45-50 years and depends on different factors. Sometimes menopause may start earlier or later. Some women are afraid of approaching menopause and consider these changing as something horrible, some women, on the contrary, face the changes as a new stage of the life. Every woman considers this physiological process and this stage in different way according to her opinion.

If menopause is naturally coming at the proper age not due to diseases or surgery, it can be divided into three stages:

Premenopause — the period from the beginning of ovaries functionality decrease to menopause;
Menopause — the period of premenopause and postmenopause, including one year after menopause;
Postmenopause — the period after menopause to old age.

After menopause process termination, the woman during menopause comes from the reproductive period to unproductive, losing ability to conceive and give birth to a child.

The organism responds to new changes in a different way. But menopause symptoms are almost identical. They include emotional disorders, headaches, tachycardia, irritability, weakness, depression, forgetfulness. Only the doctor can relieve menopause process. Therefore, after first symptoms of this process, women are recommended to visit the doctor.

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1. Menopause Symptoms
2. Menopause Age
3. Menopause and Depression

The mislead of hate and rage to one’s self instead of people around in belief of causing loss of people around. (A character in that kind of a structure has not had regular and sufficient mother- child relation in one’s early 1-2 years. The depression the person goes through is related to a real or assumed loss.)

– As a person, one’s surroundings and expectations from future, ideals and one’s real situation could be so very different from the real world, so distracted and so inappropriate that being not able to reach these high standards may lead to weakness and loneliness thoughts and depression.

– One’s super ego could be so powerful and dominant that it restricts, blames, takes away from comforting and pleasure-giving activities, as if torturing.

– People around one may expect so many things that it’s impossible to establish. This may lead to some thoughts of weakness and misery and turn them into depression.

– There exists no one that one could love, respect, be proud of, get support and company, follow the footprints, idealize as a father, mother, teacher, relative etc. in a certain level. This affects the development of character in a negative way and may lead to loss of self- confidence and eventually depression.

– Separation or loss of parents in childhood may lead to build wrong or insufficient mechanisms to get over stressed circumstances lacking of support and this may prepare some base to depression.

– The characteristics are important in depression progress. The tendency to depression is higher in people who are obsessive- compulsive, addictive, hysterionic and in borderline having personal disorders.

Related posts:

1. What Are The Symptoms of Depression? (Clinical Depression-Major Depression)
2. 10 Factors That Increase The Risk of Depression
3. Depression in Children

Depression is not only observed in adults. Children and adolescents could get depressed as well. It’s known that 5% of the children, 5-10% of the adolescents are exposed to depression.

Depression is defined as a disease that prevents the child or the adolescent from establishing various functions whereas depression feelings remains stable.

The risk of getting depressed is higher in children under stress, going through loss, having disorder of attention, comprehension, behaviour or anxiety. Family related tendency is important in depression progress as well.

SYMPTOMS

The symptoms of children and adolescents getting depressed may be different from those of adults. It’s recommended that you take an expert’s advice if there exists one or more of the depression symptoms in your children for a long time.

· Frequently crying and being sorry

· Hopelessness

· Reducing attention in activities or getting no pleasure from activities that were done before with pleasure

· Constant boredom, lack of energy

· Social isolation, lack of communication

· Lack of self- respect and feeling of guilt

· Oversensation in failure or rejection issues

· Increase in anger, hostility, resentment

· Having problems in relationships

· Frequent physical complaints like headache, stomachache

· Decrease in success in school and attendance at school

· Lack of concentration

· Great changes in habits like sleeping and eating

· Claims or attempts to run away from home

· Expressions or thoughts of suicide or hurting one’s self

A child who used to play with friends may come to spend time alone and have interest in nothing at all. The things once used to enjoy one’s self may become less interesting or have no meaning at all for a child in depression. They may say that they’re mean, not loved and blame themselves frequently. With self- respect, they may be lack of self- confidence and be conservative. Children and adolescents in depression may want to die or mention suicide. The risk of suicide increases in children and adolescents in depression. They may apply to smoking, alcohol or drugs to make themselves feel fine.

Children and adolescents causing troubles at home or school may be going through depression. For the reason the little children would not seem sorry all the time, parents and teachers may not understand that the troublesome behaviours are symptoms of depression. Hyper-activity, harshness, frequent crying may be symptoms of depression in little children. When asked directly, some children may express that they are unhappy or sorry. In little children and girls in adolescence, the symptoms of depression are seen as mostly physical complaints like stomachache or headache. Physical symptoms are frequently seen in children who are lack of self- confidence about school, insufficience in establishing relationships and having problems in getting independant from parents. Symptoms like headache or stomachache may get condensed while going to school in the morning.

EARLY DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT IS IMPORTANT

Early diagnosis and treatment is quite important in children going through depression. Depression is a real disease that really requires professional help. A developed treatment usually involves application of therapy both to the person and the family. For example, cognitive behaviour therapy and personal psychotherapy especially are important as personal therapy methods in depression treatment in children.

Treatment may require usage of antidepressing medication. Recently produced new antidepressing medications could be used with little children in safety and do not have properties like addictivity. For help, it’s essential to apply to a expert in children and adolescents’ mental health to diagnose and treat the depression in children and adolescents.

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1. Overcome Depression with 6 Methods
2. Dysthymic Disorder (Dysthymia)
3. What Are The Symptoms of Depression? (Clinical Depression-Major Depression)

Most people suffer from depression in some part of their lives. Almost everyday you can hear someone complaining about feeling down and depressed and it is pretty normal in today’s fast paced and stressed life. Depression has certainly become the 21st century plague. However, there are lots of confusions about what depression really is, the differences between clinical depression and the common old blues, and many types of depression that people may experience.

Depression is a serious –but common- mental illness that affects directly the way you live. It is true and actually sad that we use the same term –depressed- for two different things – a bad mood and a diagnosable illness. However, depression is far more than a prolonged bad mood or just feeling sad and down, it is a serious mental illness which needs treatment by professionals.

Depression can be triggered by an event like loss of a loved one, or a job, a divorce, family problems etc., but it can also come on for no apparent reason at all. Grief after the death or the usual mood swings of teenagers are not considered depression in the usual sense. It generally strikes adults and twice as many women as men.

Finding and understanding the cause of the depression is not really matters, immediately getting effective and appropriate treatment is the important thing. However, first you should know that if it is just the common blues that you are going through, or something more..?

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1. What Are The Symptoms of Depression? (Clinical Depression-Major Depression)
2. 10 Factors That Increase The Risk of Depression
3. Depression in Children

Sometimes, depression can be a very complicated feeling. Even if all the things in your life may seem to be in order, you may still fell unhappy and unsatisfied. If it is the depression that we are mentioning, internal conditions are more important than the external ones. You may have a good job, a caring family and supportive friend, still you can as yourself, everything seems fine, but why do I still feel bad about myself?

Whenever you succeed at something that is important for you, if you think that it was just your luck or anyone could have done that, you are missing a chance to be happy. This may seem like a little thing; however this kind of thinking is an obvious symptom of depression.

Everything in life changes, nothing ever stays the same, but human nature tends wishing things to continue the same way. In this case, the important and necessary thing is to adopt those changes. Unfortunately depressive thoughts and behavior make it hard to adopt these changes. You may have difficulties in changing your view of life making decisions and you may not know what to do when you face those changes. At these times life may seem not worth living for you, if this is the case you should immediately get help from trained professionals.

Depressed people often tend to live in the past and questions, where did all things went wrong? What have I done to make that happen? You may blame yourself all the time and feel not confident. All these thoughts trigger depression and if you can not enjoy your moment, even the things were currently alright, you should get help from professionals.

Remember even if your life is financially secured, you still have human needs like having good relationships with other people, feeling connected and spiritually secured and having goals to achieve. If all these things sound meaningless and pointless to you that means you may have an illness which needs treatment.

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Dysthymia is simply chronic depression which lasts for years. It does not have to be as severe as the major depression; however people who suffer from dysthymia do not even remember a day that they did not felt depressed. The symptoms are similar to depression, overeating or poor appetite, low energy, sleeping disorders, low self esteem and difficulties in concentration and making decisions.

In order to be diagnosed with dysthymic disorder, no major depressive disorder has been diagnosed and the duration in children and adolescents must be at least a year, for adults this is more than two years. This means that the person needs to have a long termed, mild and not complicated depression to be diagnosed with dysthymia.

In adults, dysthymia has a big risk to turn into major depressive disorder. In children, there is a risk of having hyperactivity disorder, learning disorders and mental retardation. Adolescents have bad school performance low self esteem and poor social interaction.

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1. Bipolar Disorder (Manic Depression)
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Bipolar disorder – also known as manic depression is a serious mental illness which is defined as episodes of disturbances in mood. It causes mood swings between two extreme things; in one hand excessive elation, energy and self esteem, and on the other hand helplessness, hopelessness and a severe depression. The first one is called mania and the second is depression, however between these extremes there may be a phase called hypomania which is mild to moderate mania.

First symptom of manic depression could be hypomania. In this state the person has an increasing energy. The person may laugh so much at things that he did not find even funny earlier and tries to take all the attention. During the hypomania, the person feels good and will possibly deny that if anything is wrong, thus bipolar disorder is generally can not be recognized by patient’s relatives, friends or even physicians.

Types of Mood Episodes

Manic Episode (Mania): Mania is a serious clinical condition which can be defined as a severely elevated mood. The person who suffers from mania has decreased need for sleep, hyperactivity, irritability, delusions and excessive anger or rage. It may lead the person to act so hasty and spontaneous. They have difficulties in making decisions and concentrating. During the manic episode, one always denies that something is wrong; however experiencing the mania is quite disturbing and unpleasant. Manic episode lasts at least a week.

Hypomanic Episode (Hypomania): Hypomania is a milder type of mania. During this episode, one may feel very creative, coming up with new ideas, has a high self esteem and is more talkative than usual. Hypomanic episode lasts at least four days.

Major Depressive Episode (Depression): Major Depressive episode may last at least two weeks.

Mixed Episode: In mixed episode, the person experiences both manic and depressive episodes and it may last at least a week.

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3. Personal Properties Affecting Depression

Depression alters the way you think, feel, behave and also affects your physical well-being.

Depression affects your thinking in a traumatic way. Negative thinking, pessimism, is the characteristic of the depression. You may suffer from problems in concentration and decision making. Suffering from short termed memory, forgetting things and immoderate guilt may be experienced during depression. Besides, it is not uncommon and unheard that depression causes self destructive and suicidal thoughts.

A person who is depressed often feels sad and empty for no reason at all. The things you enjoyed and interested before, may seem no longer enjoyable. This may include your hobbies, going out with your friends, even sex. You may feel apathetic and become more apathetic day by day. Feeling “slowed down” and being tired all the time may experienced and during a more serious depression feelings turn into helplessness and hopelessness.

Changes in your behaviour reflect the changes in your thinking and feelings. You may become really apathetic and ignore your daily activities. Actually depressed people do almost nothing; they even ignore their basic needs like eating and cleaning themselves. Sometimes just going out of the bed may seem impossible. You may have also problems controlling outbursts of anger. Excessive crying, being antisocial and feeling not comfortable with other people is common.

All of these negative changes may cause physical problems as well. Sleeping problems is another characteristic of the depression. While some people spend most of the day sleeping, some people can not sleep soundly and stay awake for hours. Chronic pains, such as headaches, eating disorders –usually losing the appetite- are experienced during depression. However, physical problems are usually persistent and will not respond to treatment.

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1. What is Depression? (major depression)
2. 10 Factors That Increase The Risk of Depression
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No matter how lonely may depression leads one to feel, in most researches are seen depressive complaint 8- 20% in major depression level. It’s observed that major depression cases with genetic tendency are in highest level in ages 30s. The possibility of observation of life- long major depression in men is 2- 12% whereas in women 5- 26%. According to the researches it is stated that each year 247-598 women and 82-201 men are added per one hundred thousand people of major depression patients.

Women get depressed as twice as much men do. The reasons why they bare this high risk are partial hormonal changes in adolescence age, having periods, menopause and pregnancy.
Despite the fact that the depression risk of men is less, probably men in need of help are many in number. They show typical depression symptoms, however with respect to women they become much more quick- tempered and ready to attack or try to hide behind the mask of using alcohol and drugs. Suicide is a serious risk for men in depression and suicide cases are 4 times much more than those of women.
Old people may have to settle for a life alone and with the loss of their beloved ones. They may be in a situation that they are not physically capable of doing activities once they used to do. All these changes may contribute to depression. The beloved ones of theirs may relate these symptoms with the consequences their age brings along, already most of them are unwilling to speak of these symptoms. As a result, old people may not get treated for depression.

Treatment

Antidepressant medications (depression treating medication) lead 60-80% of the patients recover. Treatment is long- lasting and the medication requires regular usage. It takes a couple of weeks for medications to make difference. For that reason, it’s totally wrong to stop taking medication after a couple of usage thinking it would not work. The effects of medications depend on person. Not any rule exists such as any medication is for any patient.
Furthermore side- effects depends on the medications. If a relative of yours has been through depression and recovered, the same kind of medication may be good for you. In some patients, usage of more than one kind of medication, usage of psychotherapy (therapy by professionals using special techniques in talking) along with medication or other methods may be required. Questions like which medication is good and what dose is fine are usually determined by trial and error. That’s why after you start with the therapy, do not lose touch with your doctor, have regular controls, avoid frequent doctor changes and remember that the treatment is long- lasting.
Researches revealed that by usage of medication along with psychotherapy, better results are obtained than of those by medication itself. The methods being used in depression treatment could be summarized as the following:

-Antidepressant medications

-Alternative psychotherapy methods

-Group therapies

-Electro- convulsive therapy

-Phototherapy

-Other methods

In the last group, there are some methods that are used practically but methods of which the benefits in scientific aspects have not yet been proved. Among them are techniques like usage of preparations involving B group vitamins and folic asid, acupuncture, therapy with music, therapy with herbal essences, exercises, massage etc. Whether these techniques are beneficial or not is not precise. That’s why it’s recommended that people suffering from depression should apply to a psychiatrist in the first place rather than choosing these methods directly. If any kind of a new treatment technique is considered for usage, again there should be an advice taken by an expert. Unnecessarily usage of a method may lead to loss of time and money, whereas it may hurt the patient.

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