What are Different Kinds of Mood Disorders

Mood disorder is a mental disorder that is characterized by mood disturbance. It may be mild or severe and includes depression, hypomania or mania, or their combination. Some of the major symptoms of mood disorders are personality change, aggression, loss of appetite, fatigue, depression, agitation and anxiety. The major causes of mood disorders are imbalance in brain chemicals, financial strain, prolonged illness, relationship problems, chronic health problems, career failure, poor family relations and death of a beloved one.

What are Different Kinds of Mood Disorders?

There are different types of mood disorders, based on their durations, prevalent features and severity of symptoms. The two main categories of mood disorders are unipolar disorder and bipolar disorder. Both are the types of depression. Bipolar disorder is also referred to as manic depression. Unipolar mood disorder is further categorized as major depression, dysthymia, seasonal affective disorder and postpartum depression.

• Major Depression: It is characterized by excessive depressive symptoms. Some of the common symptoms of major depression are a lack of enthusiasm in activities, depressed mood, sadness, remarkable weight loss or weight gain, increase or decrease in appetite, insomnia or increase in sleep, feeling worthless or excessive guilt, difficulty in concentrating, thinking or making decisions, loss of energy, fatigue as well as repeatedly thinking about suicide or death. In some extreme cases, people suffering from major depression disorder have a particular plan to commit suicide or try to attempt suicide.
• Dysthymic Disorder: It is also known as dysthymia. It is characterized by a constant depressed mood for about 2 years. It is accompanied by some other symptoms such as an increase or decrease in eating, low self-esteem, fatigue or low energy, insomnia or increase in sleeping, feeling hopeless and difficulty in making decisions or concentrating. These symptoms are persistent, but less severe.
• Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD): It is a type of mood disorder that is characterized by the episodes of major depression, occurring at a particular time of the year (winter, fall).
• Postpartum Disorder: It is a major depressive episode, which occurs after having a baby. The depressive symptoms generally start within four weeks after giving a birth to baby. Some of the common symptoms are headache, exhaustion, a sense of inadequacy and crying. These symptoms may be accompanied by a constant fatigue, less interest in sex, a lack of joy in the life, severe mood swings, withdrawal from family and friends, insomnia and impaired concentration or thinking. The symptoms can vary in duration and intensity.

Manic depression: Bipolar disorder is also called as manic depression. It includes the periods of depression and mania. Patient may also experience only mania without any depressive episodes. Manic depression is characterized by a persistent irritable or elevated extreme mood that lasts at least for one week. Some of the common symptoms of bipolar disorder are decreased need for sleep, inflated self-esteem or self-importance, easy distraction, excessive talking, increase in goal-oriented activities (sexual, work, social, school) or excessive movement, excessive involvement in potentially risky pleasurable behavior (unwise business investments, careless sexual activity or overspending). The symptoms can be severe enough to harm to self or others. Such patients may need hospitalization to seek appropriate treatment.

Some other types of depression are anxiety depression, chronic depression, atypical depression, reactive depression, psychotic depression, agitated depression, melancholic depression and catatonic depression. Anxiety depression is not an official type of depression. But, anxiety always occurs with depression. A depressed person may experience anxiety symptoms such as panic attacks or anxiety disorders such as social phobia, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder. Some of the symptoms of atypical depression are oversleeping, heavy feelings in legs or arms and significant weight gain or increase in appetite. Endogenous depression is another type where a person feels depressed for no apparent reason. Psychotic depression causes major depressive episode with some psychotic symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations.

The treatment for mood disorder includes a combination of antidepressant medications and different therapies such as psychotherapy or talk therapy. Electroconvulsive therapy, light therapy, Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS) therapy and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation therapy are some of the other forms of depression treatments.