Female Care

Dysthymia is simply chronic depression which lasts for years. It does not have to be as severe as the major depression; however people who suffer from dysthymia do not even remember a day that they did not felt depressed. The symptoms are similar to depression, overeating or poor appetite, low energy, sleeping disorders, low self esteem and difficulties in concentration and making decisions.

In order to be diagnosed with dysthymic disorder, no major depressive disorder has been diagnosed and the duration in children and adolescents must be at least a year, for adults this is more than two years. This means that the person needs to have a long termed, mild and not complicated depression to be diagnosed with dysthymia.

In adults, dysthymia has a big risk to turn into major depressive disorder. In children, there is a risk of having hyperactivity disorder, learning disorders and mental retardation. Adolescents have bad school performance low self esteem and poor social interaction.

No matter how lonely may depression leads one to feel, in most researches are seen depressive complaint 8- 20% in major depression level. It’s observed that major depression cases with genetic tendency are in highest level in ages 30s. The possibility of observation of life- long major depression in men is 2- 12% whereas in women 5- 26%. According to the researches it is stated that each year 247-598 women and 82-201 men are added per one hundred thousand people of major depression patients.

Women get depressed as twice as much men do. The reasons why they bare this high risk are partial hormonal changes in adolescence age, having periods, menopause and pregnancy.
Despite the fact that the depression risk of men is less, probably men in need of help are many in number. They show typical depression symptoms, however with respect to women they become much more quick- tempered and ready to attack or try to hide behind the mask of using alcohol and drugs. Suicide is a serious risk for men in depression and suicide cases are 4 times much more than those of women.
Old people may have to settle for a life alone and with the loss of their beloved ones. They may be in a situation that they are not physically capable of doing activities once they used to do. All these changes may contribute to depression. The beloved ones of theirs may relate these symptoms with the consequences their age brings along, already most of them are unwilling to speak of these symptoms. As a result, old people may not get treated for depression.

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