Characteristics of mood disorders

A mood disorder is a mental health class that health professionals use to broadly describe all types of depression and bipolar disorders. A mood disorder, also referred to as an affective disorder, is a condition that severely impacts mood and its related functions.

Patient with mood disorder, his general emotional state or mood is distorted or inconsistent with his circumstances and interferes with its ability to function. It is a disorder in which a person experiences long periods of extreme happiness, extreme sadness, or both.

Children, teens, and adults can have mood disorders. Mood disorders can cause changes in the person behavior and can affect his ability to deal with routine activities, such as work or school.

Mood disorders are likely caused by an imbalance of brain chemicals. Life events (such as stressful life changes) may also contribute to a depressed mood. Mood disorders also tend to run in families.

Mood disorders appear to have a genetic component, with genetic factors playing a more prominent role in bipolar disorder than in depression. Both biological and psychological factors are important in the development of depression. The most common types of mood disorders include:
*Major depressive disorder
*Bipolar disorder
*Seasonal affective disorder (SAD)
*Cyclothymic disorder
*Premenstrual dysphoric disorder
*Persistent depressive disorder (dysthymia)
*Disruptive mood dysregulation disorder
*Depression related to medical illness
*Depression induced by substance use or medication

In general, common symptom of mood disorders may include: Loss of interest in activities one once enjoyed, Eating more or less than usual, Difficulty sleeping or sleeping more than usual, Fatigue, Crying, Anxiety, Feeling "flat," having no energy to care, Feeling isolated, sad, hopeless, and worthless, Difficulty concentrating, Problems making decisions, Feelings of guilt, Irritability, Thoughts of dying and/or suicide.
Characteristics of mood disorders

Characteristics of Cyclothymic disorder

Cyclothymic disorder is a rare mood disorder causes emotional ups and downs. The disorder characterized is by emotional reactivity and affective dysregulation.

Cyclothymia symptoms alternate between emotional highs and lows. The highs of cyclothymia include symptoms of an elevated mood (hypomanic symptoms). The lows consist of mild or moderate depressive symptoms. The hypomania symptoms are not frequent, severe or long lasting enough to classify fully as hypomania, and the depressive symptoms are not frequent, severe or long lasting enough to classify fully as a major depressive disorder.

Patient may feel on top of the world for a time, followed by a low period when he feels somewhat down. Between these cyclothymic highs and lows, the patient may feel stable and fine.

There may be no periods of stable mood between episodes, and periods of stable mood will last for less than two months.

Cyclothymia symptoms are similar to those of bipolar I or II disorder, but they're less severe. People with cyclothymic disorder tend to have extreme reactions to external events or stimuli. They can be overly happy and enthusiastic in response to a positive event such as success at work,

a period of good weather, feelings created by substances, like drugs and alcohol.

Cyclothymia often appears in adolescence or early adulthood. Women and men are equally affected. Genetic and physiological factors are thought to contribute to the development of cyclothymic disorder.
Characteristics of Cyclothymic disorder

What is summer depression?

In the United States, summer depression is only about one fifth to one quarter as common as SAD (seasonal affective disorder).

Individuals with summer depression present a picture opposite to that of patients with winter depression.

Rather than an anergic, hyperphagic, hypersomnic, depressive picture, patients with summer depression presented with an agitated, hypophagic, hyposomnic, depressive clinical picture.

The patient will probably lose his appetite and some weight, have trouble sleeping, and feel anxious.

In addition, people with summer SAD report more suicidal ideas than their winter counterparts and may be at greater risk for harming themselves or taking their own lives.

Heat may be the triggering environmental factor in summer depression.
What is summer depression?

Depressive personality disorder

Depressive personality disorder can be viewed as a disorder in itself and not simply the expression of a predisposition to depression. One of the earliest descriptions of depressive personality disorder was provided by Kraepelin in 1921, who used the term depressive temperament to refer to a predisposition to manic-depressive lines.

Depressive personality disorder is characterized by a pervasive pattern of depressive cognitions and behaviors in various contexts.

It occurs equally in men and women and more often in people with relatives who have major depressive disorder.

People with Depressive personality disorder seek out others who would reinforce their lowly self-image and avoid those who argue with them and try to bolster their negative perceptions.

Patents with Depressive personality disorder are often critical of their own behavior and self-derogatory. They freely admit their feelings of guilt and remorse for their current state of affairs.
Depressive personality disorder

Late onset depression

Major or minor depression diagnosed with first onset later than age 60 has been termed late-onset depression.

Late-onset depression is not a diagnosis; rather, it refers to a subset of patients with major or minor depression whose later age at first onset imparts slightly different clinical characteristics, suggesting the possibility of distinct etiology.

It has been suggested that late onset depression, is a predictor of a low response rate to anti-depressant and deteriorating course of illness.

It is late-onset depression that is associated with a greater risk of vascular disease and concomitantly with deep white matter hyperintensities.

Patients with late-onset depression display greater apathy and less time personality dysfunction. Cognitive deficits may be prominent, with more impaired executive and memory functioning.

Researchers observed that patients with late-onset depression more frequently experienced agitation, weight loss, and constipation.

Others observed that patients with late-onset depression had prominent anxiety, hypochondriasis and hysterical behavior.
Late onset depression

What is a manic episode?

Manic episodes usually begin relatively abruptly, building up over a few days and then running their course. If untreated, manic episode may last anywhere from a few days to a few months.

Stressors that are disruptive to daily schedules, routines and rhythms are particularly likely to trigger a manic episode. Especially problematic are stressful events that disrupt sleep schedule.

In stark contrasts to depression positive life events can trigger manic episodes. Examples are attaining a promotion, being accepted into college or graduate school, or starting a new romance.

Cognitively manic individuals characteristically show widely inflated self-esteem believing themselves to be capable of great accomplishments or possessed of exceptional talent.

Manic individuals act on their high opinion of themselves. They behave recklessly, involving themselves in potentially risky business deals or sexual liaisons, wasting large sums of money in shopping sprees or gambling.

Other symptoms included: extreme feeling of self importance, racing thoughts, distractibility, decreased need for sleep, talkativeness and risky behavior.

Mania can ruin marriages, families, fortunes, and careers.
What is a manic episode?

Dejected Mood

Dejected Mood
The characteristics depression in mood is described differently by various clinically depressed patients. Whatever term the patients uses to describe her or his subjective feelings should be further explored by the examiner.

If the patient uses the word “depressed,” for instance, the examiner should not take the word at its face value but should try to determine its connotation for the patient.

Persons who are in no way clinically depressed may use this adjective to designate transient feelings of loneliness, boredom or discouragement.

Some time the feeling is expressed predominantly in somatic terms, such as “a lump in my throat,” or “I have an empty feeling in my stomach,” or “I have a sad, heavy feeling in my chest.”

On further investigation, these feelings generally are found to be similar to the feelings expressed by other patients in terms of adjectives such as sad, unhappy lonely or bored.

The intensity of the mood deviation must be gauged by the examiner. Some of the rough criteria of the degree of depression are the relative degree or morbidity implied by the adjective chosen, the qualification by adverbs such as “slightly” or “very,” and the degree of tolerance the patient expresses for the feeling.

Among the adjectives used by depressed patients in answer to the question “How do you feel?” are the following: miserable hopeless, blue, sad, lonely, unhappy, downhearted, humiliated, ashamed, worried useless, guilty.

Eighty percent of the severely depressed patients reported some degree of sadness or unhappiness as compared with 23 percent of the nondepressed patients.

Mild
The patient indicates feeling blue or sad. The unpleasant tends to fluctuate considerably during the day and at times may be absent, and the patient may even feel cheerful.

Also the dysphoric feeling can be relieved partially or completely by outside stimuli, such as compliment, a joke, or a favorable event. With little effort or ingenuity the examiner can usually evoke positive response. Patients at this level generally react with genuine amusement to jokes or humorous anecdotes.

Moderate
The dysphoria tends to be more pronounced and more persistent. The patient’s feeling is less likely to be influenced y other people’s attempts to cheer him or her up, and may relieve of this nature is temporary.

Also a diurnal variation is frequently present: The dysphoria is often worse in the morning and tends to be alleviated as the day progresses.

Severe
In cases of severe depression, patients are apt to state that they feel “hopeless” or “miserable.” Agitated patients frequently state that they are “worried.” About 70 percent of the severely depressed patients indicated that they were sad all the tine and “could not snap out of it”; that they were so sad that it was very painful or that they were so sad they could not stand it.
Dejected Mood