Many physicians believe that depression can have an effect on a person’s vitality as well as their mental health. In cases were the depression was a side effect of some form of illness, physicians found that using depression medications to treat the depression, also helped to treat the illness.
But if depression can complicate physical illness, it can also be the sole reason for a wide variety of symptoms that resemble those of physical ailments. In a four-year study, doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, found fatigue the single most frequent depression symptom of patients diagnosed as depressed.
Sometimes the patients felt so exhausted they couldn’t go through their daily routine. Yet at the same time they reported they couldn’t sleep well. They would doze off, and then wake up early in the morning and toss for hours. In fact, any sudden tendency to wake up very early can be one of the cardinal signs of depression.
Headaches are another common symptom. In studying 421 patients with depression, physicians found that 84 per cent complained of headache. Depressive headaches are capricious, aren’t limited to one area, tend to be worse in the morning than in the evening and often resist all ordinary remedies. But once recognized for what they are, they can be relieved with specific antidepressant medication treatments for depression.
It was also found that 75 per cent of the depressed patients in the test lost weight – from five to 20 pounds. Other symptoms included breathing difficulty, dizziness, weakness, urinary disturbance, palpitation, nausea. In a recent seminar to alert family doctors to the guises emotional troubles can take, a Harvard psychiatrist, warned that “depression symptoms are frequently referred to the gastrointestinal tract,” and urged a check for depression when patients complained of gas or abdominal pains that couldn’t be explained otherwise. He also warned that depression sometimes caused reduced potency in men and menstrual disturbance in women.
Nobody knows how many elderly people considered hopelessly senile are really only depressed. The signs of depression of the geriatric patient often remain undiagnosed. There is the feeling that he is too senile to be depressed. Actually, depressions can contribute to or even cause senile confusion.
