Psychotic Depression: Symptoms and Cures

Psychotic depression is a severe form of depression wherein, an individual demonstrates depressive symptoms along with psychosis or irrational behavior. Although this form of depression is less common compared to melancholic or non-melancholic depression, its severity can be realized by the fact that 25% of the patients hospitalized for any illness related to depression suffer from psychotic depression. Psychotic depression is one such mental disorder which can even lead to suicidal tendencies.

Although a topic of debate so far, it is assumed that psychotic depression may be caused due to abnormal functioning of thyroid or excessive production of cortical hormone during the periods of stress. It's also believed that psychotic depression can be hereditary.

Psychotic Depression Symptoms

In addition to severely depressed mood and frequent mood swings, irrational behaviors like hallucination and delusion are observed in an individual suffering from this form of depression. The individual can hear voices and see things which don't actually exist, the former being quite common phenomena. Some common delusions may include the individual's belief that something is wrong with his physical appearance or his body, which in fact is not true.

A person suffering from psychotic depression may show signs of anxiety and mental distress. Other symptoms of this disease include frequent frightening dreams, chronic sleeplessness, physical immobility and psychosis. The people suffering from this disease don't usually open up, hence it's difficult to diagnose it. The other thing, which hampers the proper diagnosis of psychotic depression is the fact that its symptoms are more or less similar to the symptoms noticed in other forms of neuropathy like schizophrenia.

Psychotic Depression Cures

An individual suffering from psychotic depression needs to be hospitalized as this disease only responds to intensive treatment. Hospitalization also ensures that the patient is under proper medical observation. The treatment for this form of depression can be divided into two parts; medication and electro-convulsive treatment.

As far as medication is concerned the treatment is mostly dependent on antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs. There are various antipsychotic or neuroleptic drugs available today but these have to be used under strict medical supervision as they have some side-effects.

Electro convulsive therapy (ECT) is recommended if the medications don't yield the desired result. In ECT, electric current is applied by putting electrodes on the scalp of the patient. It causes controlled convulsions and triggers massive neurochemical release in the brain. It mostly lasts for 30 to 90 seconds and this method is practiced for 6 to 10 times. It is carried out under the influence of anesthesia to ease the pain. Although one of the fastest way to relieve the patient, its most common side effect is temporary short term memory loss.

It is observed that, like all other forms of depression, even psychotic depression may eventually increase the risk of suicides. Hence a proper solution to this problem is a must, and combination treatment in the form of medications, counseling and talk therapies would definitely help the individual.