A recent study mentions that four out of 10 adults know a friend or a relative who is showing signs of depression. Few days back I had written about how to detect depression in your loved ones. In the last 10 years of my homeopathic practice, I have treated a lot of patients with bipolar and manic depression through our CUREplus treatment protocol for mental disorders. Considering all those cases, today I will write about how to detect depression in your self with these simple questions. Let me know what you feel about this questionnaire in the comments section.
While there aren’t specific blood tests to measure brain chemical neurotransmitter levels or imaging tests to pinpoint depression, there are a number of depression screening tests that have been developed over the years — many available through a Google search. Here are mine: • On a scale of 1 to 10, with “1” feeling very happy and “10” feeling like you wish your life was over, how would you rate your mood?
• How would you rate your concentration — good, fair, poor or somewhere in-between?
• How would you rate your motivation — good, fair poor or somewhere in-between?
• Do you have increased irritability?
• Do you have increased crying spells?
• Are you stress-eating?
• Do you have a decreased interest in enjoyable activities?
• Do you have difficulty falling asleep? (a red flag for anxiety)
• Do you have trouble staying asleep? (a red flag for underlying depression).
This provides a mental state status that can be remeasured and compared after an treatment for depression is started.
Women are known to suffer from depression after giving birth to a baby, which is called postpartum depression. Most women with real postpartum depression are never diagnosed. Even though postpartum depression is very common, and even though identifying it can help both the baby and the mother, most cases slip through the cracks. A simple new 3-question test has proven very reliable at detecting postpartum depression.
What are the 3 questions? They focus on a unique and important part of postpartum depression: excess anxiety.
Here is the test:
As you have recently had a baby, we would like to know how you are feeling. Please underline the answer that comes closest to what you have felt IN THE PAST 7 DAYS, not just how you feel today.
1. I have blamed myself unnecessarily when things went wrong.
a. Yes, most of the time – 3
b. Yes, some of the time – 2
c. Not very often – 1
d. No, never – 0
2. I have been anxious or worried for no good reason.
a. No, not at all – 0
b. Hardly ever – 1
c. Yes, sometimes – 2
d. Yes, very often – 3
3. I have felt scared or panicky for no very good reason.
a. Yes, quite a lot – 3
b. Yes, sometimes – 2
c. No, not much – 1
d. No, not at all – 0
The way I have presented it here, the maximum possible score is 9. Women with a score of 3 or more may or may not be depressed, but deserve further evaluation to be sure. If a cutoff score of 4 or even higher were used, the results would more likely indicate depression, but some depressed women would be missed.
Overcoming depression should not necessarily be seen as a solo-endeavour; rather, it’s something that requires, or is a lot easier with support. So to beat your depression find people who can help you along. They might be family, friends, colleagues or professionals; it doesn’t really matter as long as they’re the sort of person (or people) who’ll offer constructive and helpful advice (not just get you bogged down in misery and negativity).
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