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Clinical Depression

Clinical Depression: Stay In Bed And Call A Doctor?

Major DepressiveDisorder

The word clinical as it occurs in the phrase Clinical Depression, has its origins in Greece where ‘kline’ meant a couch, divan or bed, (think of recline or recliner), via the French, who gave the word ‘clinique’ to the English, who gave us clinic. Clinical medicine is not medicine practised from a recumbent position but rather, medicine practised beside the bed. Hence a good bedside manner is a hallmark of a clinician, not a medical researcher. Clinical now means pertaining to the examination and treatment of patients. We may say that a test or treatment is clinically valuable.

Clinical Depression is also termed major depressive disorder, major depression, unipolar depression or disorder. Clinical Depression is a disorder exemplified by low mood, low self-esteem, and lack of interest in normal behaviors and pastimes, (see also our pages on Depression, Causes of Depression, Treatment of Depression). The medical profession prefers ‘major depressive disorder’ and Clinical Depression as descriptors of this disorder.

As we have noted elsewhere within these pages, Clinical Depression is debilitating, even incapacitating, affecting the sufferer’s family and friends, business, education, sleep, and all round health. Sufferers of Clinical Depression can become suicidal, (in the USA about 3.5% of those with Clinical Depression kill themselves). It is somewhat stating the obvious to observe that depression carries considerable social stigma with it.

Clinical Depression: she more than he

Clinical Depression is twice as common in women as in men, although men are more likely to suicide. Age, too, is a factor with Clinical Depression often starting in the decade of the thirties and then again in the fifties. Clinical Depression diagnosis relies on the sufferer’s relating of his or her symptoms. A medical practitioner may also have regard to the evidence of relatives and other third parties. The sufferer’s mental status will be assessed.

Treatment of Clinical Depression in the community with antidepressant drug therapy, and psychotherapy is the modern norm. Inpatient treatment is used where self-harm or self-neglect occurs, and health professionals are alert to possible risks to others. Electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) is occasionally used for Clinical Depression.

Clinical Depression can last a few months or with several crescendos of depression throughout a sufferer’s life. Interestingly, the depressed live shorter lives than those unaffected, in part because depressives are prey to any number of other illnesses.

No-one claims yet to know all the answers to Clinical Depression. Psychology has its theories of personality disorders while biology looks to naturally occurring dopamine, serotonin, and other brain chemicals, leading to antidepressant medications designed to affect the levels of these.

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