Mood Disorders  (Page One of Seven)

What are mood disorders?
Mood disorders are psychiatric illness affecting the control of mood.  Other terms commonly used are depression, depressive illness, or affective disorder.

The term depressive illness is used throughout the rest of this information section, except for a brief description of a related, but opposite mood state, referred to as a mania or an abnormal high.

All people experience the feeling of depression many times in their lives.  Feeling down in the dumps, sad, gloomy, discouraged, or blue is a common response to bad news, a setback or a loss.  An extreme form of a normal state of depression is grief, a natural response to the loss of a loved one.  These mood states are usually very transient and change when events around us change.  Even grief resolves with time.

Depressive illness, on the other hand, is not transient.  It is a state of sadness or despair that persists in spite of attempts to alter it.  It usually deepens with time and begins to interfere more and more with day to day activities.

Disorders of mood are very common, and in fact, have been identified by the World Health Organization as a major public health problem.  These disorders affect all races, all cultures, all socioeconomic classes equally.

Mood disorders can occur in all age groups including the very young and the very old.

Apart from personal suffering, depression can lead to non-productivity at work, impaired relationships, as well as alcohol and drug abuse which is usually an attempt to obtain temporary relief. 

Depression also has a major negative impact on physical health.  persons who are depressed are more likely to develop other illnesses such as infections and even heart attacks.  They are also more accident prone.

Depression can also have a major adverse effect on a preexisting physical condition.  The chance of a negative outcome or complications occurring is doubled when depression is present.  in cases of heart attacks, if depression is present, it increases five-fold the chances of a negative outcome.

Depression can affect mortality.  Not only does it increase the chances of physical illness being fatal; it can also be fatal in itself.  Suicide is a major risk.  Up to 15% of persons who have an untreated depression end up committing suicide.

Over a lifetime, as many as 10-15% of the population sill suffer from a mood disorder.  Women are usually affected twice as often as men are.