What is Depression?

Depression
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Depression
Depression is a mental disorder resulting in feelings of sadness and loss of interest in familiar things. It results in a series of physical and emotional challenges. In severe cases, depression affects a person’s ability to run their basic tasks at home and work. Therefore, depression negatively impacts the way a person thinks, feels, and acts. The mood changes can last up to about two weeks. For patients, depression can last from five to six months and a year for chronic cases (Weinberger et al., 2018).
Diagnostic Criteria for Depression
According to Halter (2017), there are various ways of diagnosing depression in mentally ill patients. The nurse’s priority is to apply the diagnosis procedure of suicidal threats to determine the patient’s suicide risk. This way, medical professionals develop intervention strategies to counter the patient’s feeling of hopelessness. Halter (2017) adds that nursing diagnoses also involve assessing the risks of self-directed violence, social isolation, ineffective coping, low self-esteem, spiritual constraints, and challenges in carrying out regular self-care tasks.
Risk Factors Causing Depression
Genetic factors play significant roles in developing depression (Halter, 2017). For instance, if one of the identical twins experiences a depressive episode, chances are the second one is likely to go through depression too. Genetic markers linked to depression coupled with early childhood mistreatment or history of abuse contributes significantly to depressive disorders. Besides, abnormalities of the neurotransmitters in the central nervous system can contribute to clinical depression. The neurotransmitters’ changes can be due to genetics or environmental factors or medical conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, hypothyroidism, drug use and abuse, and cerebral infarction (Halter, 2017). People with clinical depression have a higher percentage of urine cortisol and increased corticotrophin-releasing hormones. Also, the alteration of biochemical components of the brain can cause depression. For instance, an increase in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal cortical axis activity can reduce dexamethasone, the principal suppressive cortisol agent. Men and women preceding puberty and older adults, estrogen, and testosterone production affect the brain’s areas that control mood, which may eventually contribute to depression (Schuch et al., 2018). An elevation in the levels of C-reactive protein and interleukin-6 is a sign of inflammation resulting from psychological injury. Lastly, environmental factors influence developing depression; for example, an individual exposed to frequent violence or abuse may develop depression at one point.
Clinical Manifestations of Depression
The clinical manifestation of depression includes elevated blood flow to the cerebral and metabolism. Amygdala is directly proportional to the severity of the depression. Besides, depression results from a deficiency of norepinephrine within the central nervous system (Gold et al., 2015). Depression occurs due to other psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, drugs, substance...