Depression, silent disease

• April 29, 2024

It is important to know how to differentiate sadness from depression. Both cause, among those who suffer, the loss of ability to enjoy life, melancholy, little or no interest in work or school activities, and may feel embarrassed and guilty because "everything is wrong."

However, the great discrepancy is that sadness is transient and you are conscious about why you have it, while depression is a disease that may not be perceived by those who suffer from it.

The Pan American Health Organization It estimates that 1 in 8 Mexicans suffer from depression. Its symptoms are considered "transient ills" or "existential crises" that affect "weak" people and "incapable of facing the problems of life".

These feelings generate a distorted perception of the world, and one thinks that "life is worthless". It also presents physical ills: the depressed suffers from fatigue, sleep disturbances, loss of appetite and lack of energy to undertake activities.

This is a serious situation because, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) , depression is near the top of the list of diseases that disable people to perform various activities, as they reduce the functioning of the subjects. In addition, if the condition is in a critical stage, 15% of depressed patients can reach suicide if they are not treated.

In the World Mental Health Survey of the WHO , carried out in 17 countries during 2012, it was reported that, on average, one in 20 people accepted having had a depressive episode. He estimates that there are currently at least 350 million people affected worldwide and that by the year 2030 it can become the first mental illness that will affect the population.

The patient often gets used to "living depressed" because he thinks it is part of his personality, although in reality the origin of depression is in the brain. Scientific advances have revealed that the shortage of serotonin and noradrenaline (chemicals found in the brain) is the cause of the disorder. Serotonin is released by one cell and then received by another.

When someone is depressed, this exchange is interrupted because a certain amount of the substance is reabsorbed by the cell that, under normal conditions, should release it. In these cases, the psychiatrist treats the patient with drugs that regulate the activity of serotonin, in combination with a psychological therapy. In this way it is possible to overcome depression.

Not all cases of depression require psychiatrist intervention or hospitalization. In fact, it is the family doctors who must identify this condition early, to later channel it with a specialist, in case the patient requires it.

One tool is the Practical Guide Handling the depression-anxiety spectrum , published in 2002. The document prepared with the collaboration of psychiatrists throughout the Mexican Republic under the coordination of the Dr. Alejandro Díaz, Head of the Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health of the Faculty of Medicine of the UNAM, addresses the family doctor so that he can identify and treat those who suffer from this disease, before it is too late.

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