Depressive disprder

Depressive DisorderBy Ting.H

English HL BMs. M

17/05/2011

Report about the change of prevalence of major depressive disorder

Have you ever realized that there's an increasing rate of the diagnosis of major depressive disorder amount the population these days? Did you notice that there's usually a higher risk of getting depressive disorder in certain population? The aim of this report is to investigate the change in prevalence major depressive disorder in these days. “Major depression, a mood disorder, affects nearly 17 percent of the U.S. population and 121 million worldwide.”(Campbell), with the fast development during the several passed decades, our living standard has been improved dramatically. However, as the world is getting more and more advance, are people getting happier? This report might develop an answer for this question.-Graph:

As we all know, major depressive disorder is by far the most common

psychological disorder in these day, and this has grown become a more and more serious problem for all the people living in this society. "Rates of severe, often incapacitating depression have increase in each succeeding generation born since 1915……” (Depression…). The above graph shows the overall trend of the increasing prevalence of MMD. As we can see, the rate of MMD increase during the whole time

especially at around 1950-1960, some times after the world war II, there's a pretty obvious increase trend during that time. Living in this fast-developed world, life is getting more and more convenient and comfortable, however, people are getting unhappy. Although the reason for this remains uncertain, “some researchers have suggested that the higher rates of family disruption and greater social mobility may be important contributing factors.”( Major). There’s no doubt that though development in all area of the world has its own benefit, the negative impact of these changes is also a major concern.Graph:

The graph above displays a percentage of different groups of people affected by

MMD. From the graph, it is obvious that the chance of female (6.7%) suffers from severe depression is almost twice more often than that of male (4.0%). In some period of time, “the risk of depression consistently two to three times higher among women than men across all adult ages”( Klerman), which again proves that females are usually easier to get depressed than males do, and there might be many biological and social reason contribute to this result. Graph:

Combine the above two graphs, it is noticeable that people within the age range between 40-59, along with a stressful work tend to have a pretty high risk of getting depression. In the first graph, 7.3% of population within age ranges of 40-59 influenced by depression, and people with a very stress work such as finance management, also process a much higher prevalence (34.0%) compare other group with relatively less stress work. These show us that working environment; daily pressure, stress, and even health problem are significant factors that lead to the development of depression.

Graph:

“Depression is fairly common in teens and younger children.”(Framingham). As we can see from the

graph, around 5 percent of the teens suffered form depression at any point of time. The depression amount

teens are growing become a concern for people adolescent depression, with its wide influence, is

increasing in prevalence, and teens depression today has become one of the main reasons for the teens

suicide. The facts indicate that teens today are not setting happier, instead, they’re feeling of happy is

decreasing. This might make worry some people as teens today actually enjoy many benefits and privileges

that their previous generations do not, in this case, a question is risen: is the all those developments people

made necessarily make the world become a better place to live. If so, why aren’t people getting happier?

5% of teenagers suffered from depression disorder

In conclusion, there‘s no doubt that the rate of getting depressive disorder are rising for all these period of time. “Depression appears to have become a more common disorder over the past century. Epidemiologists…….. their results indicated that the rate of depression increased progressively from one generation to the next.” (Major) As the world is developing, the level of happiness is gradually decreasing. Although reasons remain uncertain. Looking back to all the changes that have occurred in our society, I would say there are many reasons contribute to this. Even though there're still many questions waiting for people to answer, one thing we can sure is that more and more people are depressed these day, and this must be caused by a combination of various factors.

Proposal

The aim of this proposal is to provide a suggestion to increase the intensity of caring for the mental health of students in JIS by introducing a psychological therapy room, which allows students express their feeling to the therapist privately.

The initial idea came from the high school students. As exam is approaching, pressures builds up on students. During the time, some students have reported different level of stress or even depressive mood. It is obvious that students as well as some teacher might welcome some kind of therapy to help them to deal with all those hard work. The health therapy section would be organized by school, and the therapy room would also be responsible for the privacy of students.

The whole purpose is to provide students a completely free space for them to express some inner personal feeling and release pressure. As we all know, mental disorders associated with stress are becoming common these days, popular mental problems such as major depressive disorder are showing an rapid increasing rate cross the generations. In the U.S, almost one out of five people in the population suffered form depression. According to the research, most of the depression symptoms, triggered by stress, start first at adolescent. These days, teenagers are facing all kinds of pressure from the school, from parents, from friends, or even from themselves. With this private therapy room, students are able to find someone trustful to expose their difficulty and receive help or positive suggestion from the therapist. By doing this, the risk of getting depression triggered by the intensity of pressure will be reduce significantly.

Mental problems like depression can significantly influence a person’s behavior in many ways, people suffered from depression usually feel hard to concentrate on school work, to function in daily life, and to communicate with other. With the development of the world, many students in school are facing an increasing amount of pressure. When a person fail to deal with those pressures, depression can be incurred, which might lead to some terrible consequences. When in the therapist room, students are free to express their feeling, or complain about the problems they are facing to the therapist. This can be considered a wonderful way to help people deal with pressure, and also, in a way, help to light up the mood of students so they are more capable of dealing with stress, solving problems, communicating with others, as well as concentrating on their school work.

Introducing a therapy room to school will benefits everyone in the campus in many different way. It help reduce negative attitude, deal with pressure, increase enthusiastic towards study and quality of learning. This will be an excellent opportunity to cheer people up in the campus, and improve quality of teaching and learning in the school. In this case, a therapist room is really something

we should consider about.

Personal Blog“Depression appears to have become a more common disorder over the past century” reported by news

papers. Yes, the increasing rate of depressive disorder is growing become a concern in these days as more and more people are depressing. When researching, the first thing I noticed is that there's a significant increase in the rate of teenagers depression compare to the pass, and in most of the cases, the first episode of depression usually occurs at the beginning of adolescent. According to reports, untreated depression is one of the main cause of suicide among teenagers, suffering from depression, a teenager is as much as 12 times more likely to attempt suicide.

This is a bit hard to understand. Recall back to when I was small, my mom used to tell me that we should be appreciate how lucky we are, as we are the generation that enjoy the advantage of all the new technology, grow up in a relatively peaceful environment. We have air condition, smart board in the class room. When studying, with the help of computer and internet, we spend one second to click the “search” in Google instead of spending the whole night in a public library checking out countless books. We spend a few seconds to copy paste instead of wasting a entire day to copy some useful information by hand from a book. Sounds like we are suppose to be the happiest generation so far.

Yes, our generation enjoy all the privilege that our previous generation doesn't, however, does that necessarily mean we are happier? Well, the answer might be controversial, but one thing I can sure is that more and more teenagers are suffering form depression. Behind those fancy lights that shine on this generation, I can clearly feel the great pressure behind the illuminating aureole. Enjoying the advance new developed technology, teenagers today are experiencing the stress brought by technology at the same time, though, in a unconscious level. Thanks for those new technologies, we now process an open view and a sharp mind. Everyday, we receive a bunch of news and informations involving wars going on in middle east, the sever pollution of the environment, global warming, economic crisis, new fashion, new technologies, international trading......and all kinds of information from all over the world. There are so many of them sometimes, I would say, way too many for people to afford daily, and this is only one of the small potion of the great pressure. Many people might disagree as one can't really feel the stress. However, like I suggested, all these, exist in the air, and they form an grant busy operating environment in which we are included as part of it. Being affected by the environment, teenagers now become smarter compared to their previous generation, in many situation, they think more deeply, consider more widely, and worry more frequently, which stress them up in an unconscious level. On top of that, they are now facing an more competitive and challenging world caused by the using up of natural resources and increasing in world population. Now it sound like a bit of concern, however, it is not yet the pull picture.

Now stop for a while, and take a look at this fancy, busy, highly developed, technology advanced, noisy and fast changing world. Is that really what human are desiring for after thousands of years of hard working by generation after generation in this planet? If it is, then why more and more people choose to go to some remote area or countryside instead of a modern city for holiday just to relax? If it is, then why aren't people become happier? But if it isn't, then why do people work so hard to achieve something that doesn't promise them happiness? All questions eventually lead to one question , thousands years have

elapsed, after all this time, do human really know what they want?

Depression poem-when the lights disappear

there is a timewhen the sky loses its colorwhen the world falls into silencewhen the wheel of life changes its directionI'm afraid to look up again to the colorless skywhen the last tinge of warmth from the sun faint I start my own imaginary tripall by myselffighting with my innermost emptiness and sadness trying to find a place in this worldwhere I can free myself from all these painThings happened in the pass become blurred in my memory as time elapsesthose smiles appear so close to mebut all disappear when I finally rise my hand and try to touch themI am sinking, into a endless dark abysswhere there's no illumination, no sound, nothingpassing through the limits of time and spaceand there I lose my heartso I lie down and close my eye in this darknesswaiting for the this world comes to an endwhen I can eventually wave farewell to this darknessand let the unspeakable sadnessdrift away with the water

or vanish into the wind.

Project Diary:

Diary1:28/05/2011Today is the beginning of our project, during the class; I spent the whole class researching articles, graph, and pictures associated with my topic (MMD). Since MMD is actually a pretty popular topic, it didn’t take long for me to find bunches of articles and pictures. There were indeed plenty of information about MMD in the Internet, but most of them are discussing about the same field of the topic. After gathering all the general information, I continue my research at home. However, it was a bit of challenge for me to research the prevalence graph of MMD in relation to time. After spending almost two hours checking all different kind of Internet, I eventually quit and start seeking numbers and tried to draw a rough one myself. Today, spending all the time for gathering and arranging information, I haven’t started any of my writing. I am almost done with my research, it is kind of easy to find the articles discussing about the general knowledge of MMD, however, relatively hard to find articles with deeper analysis involving the relation between the growing high prevalence of MMD and the causes behind it. Although I have summarized some points myself, it will still be good to find dome support from the Internet.

Diary 2:03/05/2011Today I finish my report at home. My report is a bit like the one I did last about the “subject voluntary by girls and boys”. I researched some prevalence graph from the Google image again, there were actually many graphs you can find on Google about depression, but most of them are not so useful. Still, I couldn’t find any graph representing the prevalence of MMD involving the change of time. Eventually, I found some information from the Internet, and using the drawing tool in the computer, I draw a rough trend line myself. Although it might not be perfectly precise, it is still pretty good at showing the trend. When writing the report, trying to make my report sound more authority, I have quoted some lines from articles found in the Internet. With the bibliography in it, my report should a 24% in turnitin, a bit high, maybe I should have get rid of the bibliography.

Diary3:06/05/2011Tonight, I finished my proposal. It has been a while since we learn about this type of writing. I almost forgot about the structure of the proposal. I sat in front of the computer for around fifteen minutes, trying to recall how to write a proposal. Well, now I know why the text type collection is so important. As time goes on, we tend to forget the things we have learn before after some times even though we felt like that we will be able to remember it at that time. After checking back to the proposal examples, I eventually remember the structure of a proposal. After upload the proposal onto turnitin, I finished a beginning of my blog.

Diary4:10/05/2011today I finish my personal blog. The blog discusses about the same topic, which is, major depression disorder. In the blog, I talked about the likely reasons for the increasing rate of depressive disorder. As we all know, depression is one of the most serious causes of suicide in today. In the blog, I focus on the increase rate of depression in teenagers. In the blog, I have summarized some of my personal opinions towards the increase rate of depression in teenagers. Well, I soon found out this is actually a pretty interesting topic as there are some many things associated with the changes, development, and the structure of our society that can be connected to this topic. Sometimes, I feel like I can actually keep digging in this topic for a really long time and starts from the topic, eventually refers to many different aspect that might includes the whole society, human's history, people's change of attitude, ability to cope with situations......this is a fun project that make people think.

Diary 512/05/2011today, I just finished my last bit of the project, which is the creative writing. Initially, I wrote a brief interview between a psychotherapist and a patient with MMD. In the interview, I try to explain how a depressed person actually feel from a first person point of view. Well, it didn't take long for me to change my idea. An interview is way too plain. I then decided to write a poem for my topic. However, after spending half an hour sitting in front of the disk with a empty mind, I eventually quited and decided write a poem next time when the flash of light of idea come into my mind. Finally, I upload my interview into the turnitin.com, but I will probably change my writing the next time

Diary 617/05/2011This is the last time I work with my writing project. I just completed my poem about depression. Still haven't got a really good inspiration, but I believe poem in a way is better than an interview for my topic. I downloaded some picture form the Google image to decorate my writing. there's not Pages program in my Mac, I was going to purchase one but somehow I keep forgetting about it. After arranging all my articles in one single word document, I upload my work into the issue.com. Well, the whole project looks ok overall, although it is not as pretty as my previous project on issue, but the contents are still there. So, this is my free research project, and after this I will keep working on my powerpoint presentation

Bibliorgraphy:

"Google Images." Google. Web. 18 Apr. 2011. <http://www.google.com.au/imgres?

imgurl=http://www.diseaseaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/depression.jpg>.

"Google Images." Google. Web. 25 Apr. 2011.<http://www.google.com/imgres?

imgurl=http://www.greaterlondon-cim.co.uk/images/finance_graph.gif>. Prevalence graph


imgurl=http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_rS5NG07Ou5U/TL0u0zlrxaI/AAAAAAAADOw/

Z1myT95aQkg/s1600/major-depressive-disorder-patient-information-200X200.jpg>.


imgurl=http://www.terracecounseling.com/images/depressed.jpg>.


imgurl=http://www.geninv.net/wp-content/uploads/bipolar-disorder-manic-depression-mood-

disorder-mental-health.jpg>.


imgurl=http://bipolar.devdd.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/300_83703.jpg>.


imgurl=http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db07_fig1.gif>.


imgurl=http://www.greaterlondoncim.co.uk/images/finance_graph.gif>.

Judith, Peacock. Depression. Capstone. Print. includes most of the basic information about

depression

Kramlinger, Keith. Mayo Clinic on Depression. Philadelphia, PA: Mason Crest Pub, 2002.

Print.

Scowen, Kate. My Kind of Sad: What It's like to Be Young and Depressed. Toronto: Annick,

2006. Print. describe depression from a different way

Wolff, Lisa. Teen Depression. San Diego, CA: Lucent, 1999. Print

Framingham, Jane. "Teenage Depression | Psych Central." Psych Central - Trusted Mental Health,

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<http://psychcentral.com/lib/2007/teenage-depression/>.

Klerman GL, Weissman MM. "Increasing Rate of Depression." Web. 02 May 2011.

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2648043>.

"Major Depressive Disorder - Children, Causes, Functioning, Effects, Therapy, Adults, Drug, Person."

Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders. Web. 02 May 2011.

<http://www.minddisorders.com/Kau-Nu/Major-depressive-disorder.html>.

"Depression Rates Rise over Generations - Studies Show That Younger Persons Are Subject to the

Disorder More than in Former Years - Brief Article | Science News | Find Articles at BNET." Find

Articles at BNET | News Articles, Magazine Back Issues & Reference Articles on All Topics. Web. 02

May 2011. <http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_n23_v142/ai_13237604/>.

Campbell, Sandra L. "The Epidemiology of Major Depressive Disorder | EHow.com." EHow | How to

Videos, Articles & More - Trusted Advice for the Curious Life | EHow.com. Web. 02 May 2011.

<http://www.ehow.com/facts_5786348_epidemiology-major-depressive-disorder.html>.