Page 8 - Seniorstoday August-2023 Issue
P. 8
Cover Stories
Digging deep into
Depression
It’s important to remember that depression is not a weakness or character
flaw. It’s a chemical imbalance in your brain that needs to be treated, writes
Dr Nandini Saini
Depression is a serious mood disorder that increases risks for major depressive
affects your whole body including your disorder.
mood, emotions and thoughts. It touches Depression affects one in fifteen adults
every part of your life. If you have one (6.7%) in any given year. And one in six
episode of depression, you are at risk of people (16.6%) will experience depression
having more throughout life. If you don’t at some time in their life.
get treatment, depression can happen more AGE - Depression can occur at any time,
often and be more serious. but on average, first appears during the
late teens to mid-20s.
Who gets affected? ETHNICITY - American Indians, Native
People who have had an episode of major Americans and Alaska Natives are
depression, who are less resilient and/ the most likely to develop psychiatric
or who have anxious tendencies may disorders, including depression.
be more likely to develop a depressive Depression is found to be less common
disorder. Such people often do not develop among Asians, and more common among
the social skills to adjust to life pressures. Hispanics and Latin people.
The presence of other mental disorders GENDER - Women are more likely than
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