Diagnosis of Depression

If any person shows any symptom of having depression, then he should visit his family doctor as soon as possible. The doctor might need to perform other tests to make sure that the symptoms are for depression and not of any other illness having common symptoms.

These tests are required to perform because there are no proper tests for depression. It can only be detected with the presence of symptoms such as irritation, sleeping and eating disorders, consistent pain in the body and even hallucinations. The level of depression a person is suffering from can be detected with the help of general questions regarding the mental health of the person. Different systems are developed by American Psychiatric Association and the World Health Organization to measure depression. A good diagnosis of depression should also include the questions regarding the history of the person suffering from depression. The doctor should also acquire knowledge about loss of some dear ones of the person, loss of job or intake of any drugs. The following category of persons generally needs depression treatment:

1.People with personal or family history of depression.

2.People suffering from a lot of diseases.

3.People suffering from symptoms having no clear medical cause.

4.People who visits their doctors in quick successions.

After the diagnosis of depression, the doctors use specifiers to obtain the detailed information about the health of the person regarding the most effective treatment, the course and the duration of treatment. The specifiers related to different types of depression are as follows:

Mild: The specifier is mild if the person shows some symptoms of depression, but he can perform his routine work without any extra effort.

Moderate: The specifier is moderate if the person shows symptoms of depression and needs extra efforts to perform his routine work.

Severe: The specifier is severe if the person shows most of the symptoms of depression. In this case, the person may not be able to perform his routine work and may also be affected with hallucination and can also attempt to suicide.

Melancholic feature: The specifier is said to be melancholic, if the person feels lack of energy and uninterested in performing activities, which he earlier used to perform with excitement. In this case, the person also suffers from sleeping and eating disorders.

Catatonic feature: In this type of specifier, the person may show aimless activities or copying the behavior of others.

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