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

Mood swings disorder

When mood is stable, people usually have regular appetites, sleep patterns and energy levels. They have reasonable decision-making skills and planning and organizational abilities.

When someone is manic, they usually don’t sleep for more than a few hours a night. They are irritable, hyperactive, and restless. They can be angry and aggressive.

Americans and people around the world have mood swings every day. Mood swings can change from one minute to the next. Such shift can vary in intensity from subtle and barely noticeable to extreme and all-consuming.

They can last for days, weeks, even months at a time and years to come when everyone least expect it to happen. Mood swings tend to take the form of intensified emotional reactions.

Sometimes, the swing can take the person high, and he fells a particular strong delight in everything around him, the weather, a movie, his dinner companion.

Other times, however, mood swings can take him on a wild roller-coaster ride of emotions, such as intense sorrow, despair, love, anger, anxiety, general depression or fear.

Exercise is helpful in controlling mood swings. Thirty minutes of walking every day has been proven to help with depression and mood swings.
Mood swings disorder

Definition of mood states

Most dictionary define ‘mood’ as a ‘state of mind’ or a ‘prevailing feeling or emotion’. Mood perhaps best characterized as neurophysiological state that consciously accessible, primitive and simple at psychological level, but complex at an etiological level.

Moods may signify happiness, anger, tension, or anxiety. Chronic periods of any mood state may be an indicator of a disorder as well. Mood states are like the colors of the rainbow: each shade is distinct, but they blend into one another at the edges.

Mood states are different from specific emotions, like anxiety in that they are more enduring and less intense feeling states but their effect on sports performance is thought to be substantial.

Moving through the different shades of emotions is often a normal and appropriate response to the situations in which anybody can find themselves.

Mood is sensitive to a variety of personal factors, such as health (e.g. negative effects from illness or allergies), hormones and perceptions.

Although people are not always aware of their mood states, or sometimes struggle to find the word that best captures who they fell at any one moment, it is very rare to be devoid of any emotion.
Definition of mood states

Normal moods and depression

There is little agreement among authorities regarding the relationship of depression to the changes in mood experienced by normal individuals.

The term mood is generally applied to a spectrum of feelings extending from elation and happiness at one extreme, to sadness and unhappiness at the other. The particular feelings encompassed by this term, consequently, are directly related to either happiness or sadness.

Subjective states, such as anxiety or anger, that do not fit into the happiness-sadness categories ate not generally included.

The episodes of low mood or of feeling blue experienced by normal individuals are similar in a number of ways to the clinical states of depression.

First, there is a similarity between the description of the subjective experience of normal low mood and of depression. The words used to describe normal low mood tend to be the same used by depressives to describe their feelings – blue, sad, unhappy, empty, low, lonely.

It is possible, however, that this resemblance may be due to depressed patients’ drawing on familiar vocabulary to describe a pathological state for which they have no available words. Some patients, in fact, state that their feelings during their depression are quite distinct from any feelings they have ever experienced when not in a clinical depression.

Second, the behavior of the depressed patient resembles that of a person who is sad or unhappy, particularly in the mournful facial expression and the lowered voice.

Third, some of the vegetative and physical manifestation characteristics of depression are occasionally seen in individually who are feeling sad but who would not be considered clinically depressed. A person who has failed an examination, lost job, or been jilted may not only feel discouraged and forlorn, but also experience anorexia, insomnia and fatigability.

Finally, many individuals experience blue states that seem to oscillate in a consistent or rhythmic fashion, independently of external stimuli, suggestive of the rhythmic variations on the intensity of depression.
Normal moods and depression 

Major depressive episode

A major depressive episode is a period characterized by the symptoms of major depressive disorder.

It is primarily severely depressed mood and a loss of interest or pleasure in most of the day, nearly every.

It is accompanied by other symptoms such as feelings of emptiness, hopelessness, anxiety, worthlessness, guilt and/or irritability, changes in appetite and weight loss, problems concentrating, diminished ability to think or concentrate, insomnia and recurrent thoughts of death or attempts at suicide.

In other words, the criteria for Major Depressive Disorder simply require that the patient experience at least one Major Depressive Episode and that the episode is not part of some oater psychotic disorder and is not part of other kind of mood disorder containing manic elements.

Note that for Major Depressive Disorder to be considered recurrent, on needs only to determine that there was a period lasting at least 2 months on which the depressive symptomatology consistently fell below the five-symptom threshold for q Major Depressive Episode – not a 2-month period of full remission.
Major depressive episode

Bipolar Depression

Bipolar Depression
Bipolar disorder is a serious disorder of the brain often confuse with depression alone.

Bipolar disorder was formerly called manic-depressive disorder. It is a type of depression, and it characterized by the presence of mood swings, especially "manic highs" that often result in high risk, self-damaging behavior.

Most individuals with bipolar disorder have both depressive episodes and hypomanic episodes.

The first to describe mania and melancholia as a bipolar disorder was the Greek physician Aretaeus of Cappadocia in the first century AD. He considered melancholia and mania as two manifestations of one and the same disease.

Almost 70 percent of all those with bipolar disorder are depressed at any one time. People who cycle spend three times as much time being depressed as being maniac.

When bipolar is insufficiently treated, people spend an average of four months of the year in depression.

In bipolar depression people are likely to sleep more, rather than less. Normally people with bipolar depression are more likely to have an earlier onset of symptoms and a greater number of depression episodes.
Bipolar Depression

Dysthymia and Dysthymic States

Dysthymia and Dysthymic States
In the latter years of the eighties dysthymic disorders have stimulated increasing research.

The DSM-111 category of depressive neurosis has become dysthymia in the DSM-111-R.

This is however, regarded as distinct from mild major depression. Dysthymia (or depression neurosis) includes depressed mood for most days at least two years plus two of the following:

• Poor appetite or overeating
• Insomnia or hyposomnia
• Low energy or fatigue
• Low self esteem
• Poor concentration of difficulty making decisions
• Feeling of hopelessness

The criteria of; insidious onset with origin often in childhood or adolescence; persistent or intermittent course; concurrent “character” pathology; ambulatory disorder compatible with “stable” social functioning.

The idea that there are cycles in neurasthenia has been for some centuries. There are suggestion three forms of cyclical disorder.

These are

• Hyperthymic disorder, where the individual cycles in and out of hypomanic episodes many of whom may nor present for treatment
• Cyclothymic disorder, where the individual cycles into both hypomania and depression
• Subaffective dysthymic disorder where the cycle is only into depression, although tricyclic anti depressants may trigger hypomania.

Dysthymia and Dysthymic States

Symptoms of Depression II

Symptoms of Depression II
People with psychoses may develop paranoia, believing that they are being manipulated by known or unknown people or forces that there is a conspiracy against them, or that they are in danger.

No amount of rational explanation changes the delusional belief.

Others may be convinced that they have committed an unpardonable sin against loved ones or against their God and deserve punishment, even death.

Some sufferers become so firmly convinced of their own worthlessness that they begin to view themselves as a burden to their families and choose to kill themselves.

Occasionally, severe depression may result in hallucinations in which the depressed person hears or sees things on people that are not present; other types of hallucinations, such as smelling or feeling that are not present, are less common in severe depression than in some other brain disorders.

The changes occurring with depression understandably result on alteration in behavior,

Most individuals with moderate to severe depression will experience decreased activity levels and appear withdrawn and less talkative, although some severely depressed individuals show agitation and restless behavior, such as pacing the floor wringing their hands and gripping and massaging their foreheads.

Given a choice most begin to avoid people and activities, yet others will be most uncomfortable when alone or not distracted.

In general, the severely depressed become less productive, although they may successfully mask the decline in performance of they have been highly productive in the past.

In the workplace, depression may result in morale problems, absenteeism, decreased productivity, increased accidents, frequent complaints of fatigue, references to unexplained aches and pains, and alcohol and drug abuse.

Severely depressed individual have been known to work their regular schedule during the day, interact with their coworkers in a routine way, and then go home and kill themselves.
Symptoms of Depression II

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

Normal Moods and Depression

Normal Moods and Depression
There is little agreement among authorities regarding the relationship of depression to the changes in mood experienced by normal individuals. The term, mood, or generally applied to a spectrum of feelings extending from elation and happiness at one extreme, to sadness and unhappiness at the other. The particular feelings encompassed by this term, consequently, are directly related to either happiness or sadness Subjective states, such as anxiety or anger, that do not fit into the happiness sadness categories are not generally included.

Some authors believe that all individuals have mood swings and that normal individuals may have “blue” hours or “blue” days. This belief has been supported by systematic studies of oscillations in mood in normal subjects.

The episodes of low mood or of feeling blue experienced by normal individuals are similar in a number of ways to the clinical states of depression.

First, there is similarity between the descriptions of the subjective experience of normal low mood and of depression. The word used to describe normal low mood tend to be the same used by depressive to describe their feelings – blue, sad, unhappy, empty, low, lonely. It is possible, however, that this resemblance may be due to the depressed patient’s drawing on his familiar vocabulary to describe a pathological state for which he has no available words. Some patients, in fact state that their feelings during their depression are quite distinct from any feelings they have ever experienced when not in a clinical depression.

Second the behavior of the depressed patient resembles that of a person who is sad or unhappy, particularly in the mournful facial expression and the lowering of the voice.

Third, some of the vegetative and physical manifestations characteristics of depression are occasionally seen in individuals who are feelings sad but who would not be considered clinically depressed. A person who has fail an examination, lost a job, or even jilted, may not only feel discouraged and forlorn, but may experience anorexia, insomnia, and fatigability.

Finally many individuals experience blue states that seem to oscillate in a consistent or rhythmic fashion, independently or external stimuli, suggestive of the rhythmic variations in the intensity of depression.
Normal Moods and Depression

Description of Depression

Description of Depression
The condition that today we label depression has been described by a number of ancient writers under classification of “melancholia.” The first clinical description of melancholia was made by Hippocrates in the 4th century B.C. He also referred to swings similar to mania and depression.

Aretaeus, physician living in the 2nd century, A.D described the melancholic patient as “sad, dismayed, sleepless…They become this by their agitation and loss of refreshing sleep…At more advanced stage, they complain of a thousand futilities and desire death.” It is noteworthy that Aretaeus specifically delineated the manic-depressive cycle. Some authorities believe that he anticipated the Kraepelinian synthesis of manic depressive psychosis.

Pinel at the beginning of the nineteenth century described melancholia as follows:
“The symptoms generally comprehend by the term melancholia are taciturnity, a thoughtful pensive air, gloomy suspicious and a love of solitude. Those traits, indeed, appear to distinguish the characters of some men otherwise in good health, and frequently in prosperous circumstances. Nothing, however, can be more hideous than the figure of a melancholic brooding over his imaginary misfortune. If moreover possessed of power, and endowed with a perverse disposition and a sanguinary heart, and image is rendered still more repulsive.”

Because the disturbed feelings are generally a striking feature of depression, it has become customary in recent years to regard this condition as a “primary mood disorder” or as an “affective disorder.” The central importance ascribed to the feeling component of depression is exemplified by the practice of utilizing affective adjective check lists to define and measure depression. The representation of depression as an affective disorder is a misleading as it would be to designate scarlet fever as a “disorder of the skin” or as a “primary febrile disorder.” There are many components to depression other than mood deviation.

Depression may now be defined in terms of the following attributes:

• A specific alteration in mood: sadness, loneliness, apathy
• A negative self concept associated with self-reproaches and self blame.
• Regressive and self punitive wishes: desires to escape, hide or die.
• Vegetative changes: anorexia, insomnia, loss of libido
• Change in activity level: retardation or agitation.
  

Description of Depression

Symptoms of a Major Depressive Episode

Symptoms of a Major Depressive Episode
Major depressive episode can be defined by the criteria listed below. At least five of the symptoms, including one or the other of the first two, must be present during the same two-week period for major depression to be diagnosed.

• Depressed mood (or can be irritable mood in children and adolescents) most of the day, nearly every day, as indicated either by the subjective account or observation by others.

• Markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all day, or almost all, activities most of the day, nearly every day (as indicated either by subjective account or observation by others of apathy most of the time)

• Significant weight loss or weight gain when no dieting (e.g. more than 5% of body weight in a month), or decrease or increase in appetite nearly every day (in children, consider failure to make expected weight gains).

• Insomnia or hypersomnia nearly every day

• Psychomotor agitation or retardation nearly every day (observation by others, not merely subjective feelings of restlessness or being showed down)

• Fatigue or loss of energy nearly every day

• Feelings of worthlessness or excessive of inappropriate guilt which may be delusional nearly every day (not merely self reproach or guilt about being sick)

• Diminished ability to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness, nearly every day (either by subjective account or as observed by others)

• Recurrent thoughts of death (not just fear of dying), recurrent suicidal ideation without a specific plan, or a suicide attempt or a specific plan for committing suicide

Symptoms of a Major Depressive Episode

Mood Disorders

The Depression
Definition
The person felt sad, or melancholy, from time to time. But there is a point where the ache of sadness becomes chronic and insufferable, a mountain of pain to its victim. Mood disorders, predominantly Depression and Bi-polar syndromes, are said to strike one in seven of the population.

Mood Disorders in Children and Adolescents
The two principal classifications for mood disorders are bi-polar (also known as manic-depression) and depression alone. Bi-polarity is characterized by wild mood swings ranging from deep sadness and depression to euphoric and manic type behavior. Depression is defined as a deep overriding sadness and feelings of despair. These feelings are all pervasive and don't disappear in time.

Children and adults who suffer from mood disorders cannot cope well in society. When depressed, they experience a loss of interest and lack of enjoyment in life. For a person with bi-polar disorder, the manic swings can create a disruptive influence on all aspects of their life and the lives of everyone around them.

Bi-polar disorder is classified in two categories: Bi-polar I and Bi-Polar II. Bipolar I Disorder is considered the classic form of manic depression, with full Manic Episodes and Major Depressive Episodes. Bipolar II Disorder involves Major Depressive Episodes and Hypomanic (non-full-blown Mania) Episodes. Since a significant portion of those suffering with manic depression do not have full manic episodes, the classification was divided into Bipolar I and Bipolar II. However, Bipolar II is often a first step to Bipolar I.

Bi-polar disorder appears to run in families, and there is some evidence that a biological vulnerability towards bi-polarity could be inherited. However, not everyone with this genetic vulnerability has the illness. Major depression also seems to appear generationally, but it too can occur in persons with no family history of the disease. An important factor that the research has uncovered is that major depressive disorder is associated with a neuro-chemical imbalance in the brain.
The Depression

How to Tell if Your Depression Is Psychological or Biochemical

Depression
Biochemical depression has certain symptoms that distinguish it from the depression stemming from negative life events. You have reason to suspect that you are biochemically depressed if any of the markers listed below describes your depression:

*You have been depressed for a long time despite changes in your life
*Talk therapy has little or no effect; in fact, psychological probing-- questions like "Why do you hate your father?"--leave you as confused as Alice at the Mad Hatter's tea party
*You don't react to good news
*You awaken very early in the morning and can't get back to sleep
*You cannot trace the onset of your depression to any event in your life
*Your moods may swing between depression and elation over a period of months in a regular rhythm (this suggests bipolar, or manic-depressive, disorder) Heavy drinking makes your depression worse.
Depression

Depression Is One Of The Strong Emotions Associated With Overeating*

Depression
Anyone can be an emotional eater. After a failed marriage, one woman found she had gained 60 pounds. Yes, some could be linked to the medicine she was on, but a great deal was associated with emotional eating. Experts have started paying more attention to emotional eating in both sexes. They even go so far as to suggest in Women Today that most gains in weight are linked to emotional eating because 75% of overindulging is connected to stuffing the emotions.

Depression is one of the strong emotions associated with overeating. In a depressed mood, most will feel hopeless, tired, and uninterested in activities they used to love. Attempting to cheer themselves up, these people will often turn to food to deal with these feelings. Unfortunately, that overeating causes the pounds to pack on. This weight gain can deepen the depression even further.

Many people overeat out of boredom. With nothing else to do, they rummage through the cupboards to fill the time. Often they sit in front of the TV or computer mindlessly munching on snacks without ever being hungry. Instead of determining why they are bored, or finding something constructive to fill that boredom, these overeaters stuff the time, and their stomachs, with unnecessary fattening foods.

How can you tell if you eat emotionally? You can evaluate your eating habits by asking how it is connected to your emotions. When you are scared, worried, or sad, do you start snacking? Does that snacking or overeating make you feel better, even if it is temporary? When you are angry or disappointed, do you handle those feelings by binging on your favorite comfort food? Have you noticed that after a major change in your life you have started eating more to deal with those feelings? If you answered, “yes” to any of these you could be an emotional eater.

What should you do if you are an emotional eater? First, you can try distracting yourself from the overeating by choosing to do something else instead. When you are bored and start to grab that bag of chips, take the dog for a walk instead. Sign up for dancing class to keep you busy. The alternative activity doesn’t even have to be physical. You could read a book, take up crocheting, or learn a new language. With practice, you can overcome that emotional urge to overeat.

To get to the root of the issue, you can determine what triggers you to eat emotionally. Is there a certain time that it hits? Is there a certain activity such as watching TV that sets off that urge? If you have a certain time and place that triggers your urge to overeat, you can redirect that energy by doing something different, and less fattening, at that time or place.

Networking with others can also offer you support that is needed to beat that overeating urge. You could enlist family members to help you identify when you are overeating and support your efforts to do something else. You could join a support group of other overeaters that is geared to help people that eat emotionally. These often offer someone for you call when you get that urge so that you can talk through the emotion instead of overeating.

If the emotions that are causing you to overeat continue, you may want to consider therapy to deal with them in a healthy way. Often a psychotherapist can help you find ways to cope with the feelings in a more constructive manner. Many times talking to someone other than family is easier and allows a much needed release for those emotions.
Depression