Symptoms of Depression I

Symptoms of Depression I
There is no blood test for depression. The diagnosis is based on the reports of sufferers about how they feel and on observations of how they look and behave made by doctors and by people who know them well.

The symptoms of depression fall into four categories: mood, cognitive, behavioral and physical.

In other words, depression affects how individual fell, think, and behave as well as how their bodies work.

People with depression ma experience symptoms in any or all of the categories, depending on personal characteristic and the severity and type of depression.

Depressed people generally describe their mood as sad, depressed, anxious, or flat.

Victims of depression often report additional feelings of emptiness, hopelessness, pessimism, uselessness, worthlessness, helplessness, unreasonable guilt, and profound apathy.

Their self esteem is usually low and they may feel overwhelmed, restless or irritable.

Lost of interest in activities previously enjoyed is common and is usually accompanied by a diminished ability to fell pleasure, even in sexual activity.

As the illness worsens, the cognitive ability of the brain is affected. Slowed thinking, difficulty with concentration, memory lapses and problems with decision making become obvious.

Those losses lead to frustration and further aggravate the person’s mounting sense of being overwhelmed.

In its most severe forms, depression causes major abnormalities in the way sufferers see the world around them. They may become psychotic, believing things that are not true or seeing and hearing imaginary people or objects.

Psychosis in depression is not rare between 10 to 25 percent of patients hospitalized for serious depression, especially elderly patients, develop psychotic symptoms.

Symptoms of psychosis may include delusions (irrational beliefs that cannot be resolved with rational explanations) and hallucinations (seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, or tasting or smelling things or people that are not present).
Symptoms of Depression I