�The teenage years ar a time of aroused highs and lows. So how do you signalize normal teenaged mood swings and uprising from actual depression? The September 2008 issue of the Harvard Mental Health Letter highlights some ways to say.
Although depression can occur at any age, it affects teens more than younger children. Depressive symptoms may pop appearing around age 13, and much peaks between 16 and 24. Yet depression can be unmanageable to name in lester Willis Young people, because symptoms seldom involve mode alone. One study ended that fewer than half of teenager patients suffered mainly from depressive symptoms. More often, they developed a mix of climate and behavioural problems, for example, agitation, anxiety, attention difficulties, or defiant behaviors.
Many schools have implemented screening programs to name teens at risk as well as programs to prevent depression. These programs generally cultivate staff and students around depression and suicide, furnish advice and practice in challenging negative thinking, and seek to build resiliency and problem solving skills. The most effective programs are those that are enforced consistently and on an ongoing basis.
Dr. Michael Miller, editor in chief of the Harvard Mental Health Letter, says experts have identified the following ways to distinguish mode swings from depression in adolescents:
- Severity: The more marked the symptoms (changes in mood, behaviors, feelings, thoughts), the more likely that the problem is depression and non a passing play mood.
- Duration: Any deterioration in behavior or mood that lasts deuce weeks or longer, without a fail, may betoken depression.
- Domains: Problems noticed in several areas of a teen's functioning-at home, in school, and in interactions with friends-may indicate depression.
Also in this issue:
- Helping psychiatric patients stop smoking
- Losing an adult sib
- Bright lights and dementia
- Happiness from giving money away
- Social networks and memory
The Harvard Mental Health Letter is available from Harvard Health Publications, the publication division of Harvard Medical School, for $24 per year. Subscribe at hypertext transfer protocol://www.health.harvard.edu/mental or by calling 877-649-9457 (toll-free).
Harvard Medical School
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