Saturday, April 30, 2011

The Physical Pain That Comes with Depression

Studies have shown that patients who battle with how to deal with depression in many cases go through physical problems as an element of their condition. This situation appears to be the finding of research carried out by the Indiana University School of Medicine and published in the August 2004 Journal of General Internal Medicine.

When patients explain their problem with their doctors they are usually prone to identify symptoms like light-headedness, abdominal, back or muscle pain, as well as headaches, as opposed to symptoms like hopelessness, lack of motivation, and fatigue, which have been more-commonly connected with depression.

As researchers find out more about this problem they are coming to identify its complexity, including masking itself as a physiological condition. As a matter of fact, medical professionals are discovering that reports of these kinds of physical symptoms by their patients are often powerful indicators of a depressive occurrence.

Mental health researchers are now using the physical pain which is connected with depressive disorders to measure the effectiveness of commonly-prescribed antidepressant medications.

There are some experts who think antidepressants just modify psychological symptoms, instead of being a definitive solution to how to deal with depression. These individuals point out the belief that physical symptoms remain long after individuals claim progress in their emotional well-being.

The Indiana University study analyzed physical symptoms of depressive disorders relating to frequency, effect on quality of life and long-term improvement for patients while they experienced 9 months of prescription medications. 5 hundred and seventy-three patients who participated in the study were examined at intervals of one, 3, six and 9 months. Findings disclosed that over 1/3 of patients reported a persistence in physical symptoms when psychological symptoms had boosted.

The seriousness of the physical discomfort that occurs with depression can also be a good predictor of how sensitive the patient will be to drugs. Results of a related study by Dr. Kroenke indicated that patients' early responsiveness to antidepressant medication decreased in relation to the reported severity of their physical discomfort.

These kinds of outcomes may possibly enable physicians to determine, more-precisely, how to deal with depression as it happens in various patients.

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