May 28 2008

Recognizing Depression and Preventing Suicide in Children and Adolescents part 1

Published by dodo at 6:39 am under Adolescent, Books, Children, Education, Family, Teenager

 

DEPRESSION: AS COMMON AS THE COMMON COLD

Depression is by far the most common and important emotional health problem in America. In terms of its frequency among the population, depression could be compared to the common cold. But the similarity ends there.

  • The sneezing and hacking of a cold is readily apparent to the person who has it, as well as to everyone around him. But depression can be manifested in a bewildering array of symptoms, many of them physical, but may not be recognized by the individual himself or by those closest to him.
  • Cold viruses are usually vanquished by the immune system within a week, while untreated depression can continue for months or even years.
  • Cold remedies are simple to use and readily obtained at the nearest supermarket. But appropriate treatment of depression is a prolonged process that nearly always involves one or more professionals and sometimes carefully chosen medication.
  • A person with a cold isn’t considered defective or weak-willed or in need of “getting his act together.” But depression is a diagnosis no one wants to acknowledge or accept because of the stigma associated with having a mental disorder.

While colds never have a fatal outcome except in the most physically frail individuals, depression can lead to the sudden and tragic ending of a life that would most likely have continued for many more years.

KidsAll of the difficulties and heartaches arising from depression apply not only to adults but also to children and adolescents, often with greater intensity. At any given time, nearly 2 percent of prepubertal children and 5 percent of teenagers are estimated to have a major depressive problem—not a brief case of “the blues” or a temporary mood swing—and that number may be conservative. What is more disturbing is that depression kills the young more frequently than it does adults. Suicide is the sixth leading cause of death in children between the ages of five and fourteen and the third leading cause of death among those between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four, claiming the lives of at least five thousand teenagers every year in the United States. The number may actually be higher, because many accidents (such as drug overdoses, drownings, or fatal automobile crashes involving a lone teenage driver) may in fact be suicides. The suicide rate among the young has risen dramatically among fifteen- to nineteenyear-olds, it has doubled, while among ten- to fourteen-year-olds it has tripled.’

In our culture the term depression is applied to a broad spectrum of situations in which a person feels unhappy. Here, however, we are dealing specifically with clinical depression—not a temporary emotional slump, such as after watching a sad movie or receiving a traffic ticket or even after a day in which one thing after another goes sour. Clinical depression involves a persistent and usually disruptive disturbance of mood and often affects other bodily functions as well. As we list the common characteristics of depression, it is important to note that these may manifest themselves quite differently in children and adolescents from how they appear in adults. In fact, because the behaviors provoked by depression are frequently confused with the normal emotional and physical upheavals of growing up, at one time it was erroneously assumed that this condition occurred rarely, if at all, before adulthood. In each symptom category we will mention some of the unique variations seen in young people who are depressed.

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Recognizing Depression and Preventing Suicide in Children and Adolescents part 1

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