Many health conditions can have depression associated with them, which range from endocrine (hormonal) disorders, cardiac conditions, cancers, vitamin deficiencies, etc.
Usually, depression occurs separate from another medical disorder, but if physical signs and symptoms exist other than those typically found in depression, a medical/physical examination to exclude physical causes for depression is warranted.
For their medical background, psychiatrists routinely consider medical conditions as possible causes for depression and therefore will assess an individual's health background.
Your psychiatrist may consider obtaining laboratory tests included in screening for medical conditions or may defer this evaluation to your primary care physician. If your medical problem exists, it may be difficult to determine with certainty whether the depression is physiologically related or merely co-occurring with the illness.
Treatment from the medical disorder may or may not result in resolution from the depression, but resolution of the depression would offer the physiologic connection. Even when so connected, it's possible that treatment for depression will still also be needed.
Depression can have adverse effects on the body and it is recovery from illness; thus, it is crucial to treat co-existing depression vigorously. For example, postrecovery cardiac patients do more poorly when depressed, and therefore, depression is generally treated more vigorously now in this population than it absolutely was in years past.
More often, depression worsens existing medical conditions or is the reason itself for physical symptoms. Depression and anxiety can be related to several physical ailments for which there are no physical cause related to them. Sometimes, a symptomatic person doesn't endorse depressed mood, or there's denial of the depressed or anxious mood.
Instead, the emotional distress is expressed through physical symptoms. Such persons could see a variety of doctors seeking a "medical" reason for their symptoms.
Missing a mood disorder in such cases migh result in an overuse of healthcare services - not to mention persistent morbidity and decreased productivity in the person. Afflicted persons often show improvement in the physical symptoms with an antidepressant or therapy.
Our website is not responsible for the information contained by this article. Articleinput.com is a free articles resource thus practically any visitor can submit an article. However if you notice any copyrighted material, please contact us and we will remove the article(s) in discussion right away.
Note: This article was sent to us by: Glenn Merrill at 02102011
1. Types of depression and tests used in depression research
All articles are property of their respective authors. Please read our Privacy Policy!
© 2009 ArticleInput.com.
Partners: Damenmode