|
|
|
The Kaleidoscope World of Psychotic Depression
 Seeing flying purple
elephants, dead people and talking objects, these are some of the
effects of psychotic depression. Entertaining, as it may seem, having
this condition is a very serious problem.
It is a type of depression that is accompanied with delusions, which
are irrational thoughts and fears and hallucinations, in which you see
and hear nonexistent things.
However,
there are also other types of depression that is accompanied with
hallucinations. The difference is that people with psychotic depression
know that their thoughts are not true.
Seeing the
Signs And Wonders
The common symptoms are anxiety, hypochondria, and agitation. You can
also have difficulty sleeping and develop insomnia. There are times in
which you become sedentary. You also tend to have digestion problems,
especially constipation.
Your cognitive skills are also affected greatly to the point of
impairment. Then you start having hallucinations where you start seeing
surreal things like flying objects and talking nonliving things. You
also develop delusional thoughts, like paranoia and other unreasonable
fears.
Cause
The cause of
psychotic depression is not yet identified but research show that it
is linked to a certain hormone named Cortical; which your body produces
in large volumes especially when you are stressed out. Unlike other
kinds of depression there are no specific risk factors for the incidence
of this type of depression.
Treatment
When you are being treated for this condition, it would require you for
a long hospital stay. You also have to undergo close check-ups and
follow-ups with a mental healthcare professional.
An antidepressant drugs alone are not enough to treat this kind of
depression.
Usually, a combination use of antipsychotic medications and tricyclic
antidepressants work best for treatment. For those cases with bipolar
disorder, lithium is added to the drugs to reach optimal results.
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is often a last resort, which is used to
treat extreme cases. Although this kind of therapy has good results, it
is never used without due consideration. The whole treatment process
should be administered and done by a trained professional, usually a
psychiatrist.
It usually takes up a year for a psychotic depressive patient to
recover. The psychotic symptoms may not return any more after you are
treated, but you can still have some visitations from the symptoms of
depression.
That’s why it is very important to have regular check-ups even after
treatment, and continued medication for depression if your doctor
advises you to do so.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Back to Articles on Depression
|
|
