A Psychiatric Disorder: Depression

Hello all, myself Dr Ambrish Dharmadhikari I am a consultant psychiatrist, I practice and Goregaon, Mumbai. Today I would like to talk about depression as you know all depression is one of the most common mental disorder, World Health Organisation predicts by 2020 depression would be most common morbidity in the world. We would have a higher number of patients suffering from depression then hypertension and diabetes mellitus so this is going to be a huge problem in India. So let's understand what is depression, depression is an illness where person has a low mood, have a decrease interest, it is easy fatigability, he cannot concentrate on his work, there are crying spells at times you get sleep disturbances, appetite is not well, so likewise these symptoms occur but these symptoms should be persistent for to wait for us to diagnose a depression. When this symptom occurs we tend to feel at a time not going out, not working and not even getting the help that is the point I think where everyone should come out and seek help because in a vision of paradoxical nature of depression not seeking help. So if you find anyone who is suffering from similar symptoms or yourself please you need to seek help. So when you come to psychiatrist what we do so in depression after diagnosing depression we go for the treatment so management of depression goes along to lines one is psychotherapy where we talk to the patient, talk about symptoms of depression and try to find ways to come out depression through a change in thinking. So most common therapy is used is called as a cognitive behavioural therapy, where there is a change in combination which leads to changing behaviour and it leads to overcoming of illness. Another line is medication so in medication, there are various medications called as a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors are available which are utilised mainly to increase the syndrome levels in your brain which is commonly found in to decrease in the patient of depression. Ideally, the combination of medication and therapy is an indication in patients of depression. At times patience of depression comes with the complaints of suicidal ideation so this forms an emergency, so whenever if someone is expressing you about suicide or want to end the life, then it is an urgent and immediate need to contact psychiatrist and seek and intervention. There is a suicide assessment which can be done by a psychiatrist with details assessment we can find the cause and definitely treat it immediately. Life is Precious we should not waste it. With this, I would like to urge all you that to watch for signs of depression symptoms in you as well as people surrounding you. Those who are suffering from stress tension or any family history of disturbance are more prone to fall for this illness. So please wake up and keep your eyes open, if you have any more query or questions you can contact me on Lybrate. Thank you.