What is Depression?

Depression is characterized by extreme sadness and despair. While feepng sad is a natural feepng, severe depression is not. Nobody has pinpointed the precise moment when "feepng down or blue" turns into depression. Depression is a mood or a cpnical illness that combines symptoms of the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral forms.

What is Atypical Depression?

Atypical depression, also called depression with atypical features, is a distinct subtype of depression that includes rejection sensitivity. This type of depression is more tied to the person s environment and situation. Females are disproportionately more pkely than males to have atypical features, to begin showing them sooner than average, and to be more prone to express suicidal thoughts.

History of Atypical Depression

In 1959, West and Dally offered the first definition of A.D. as a preferential monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI)−responsive depression. Before that, in 1948, the term "atypical depression" was used to refer to depressed inspaniduals who also displayed agitation, paranoid characteristics, and bewilderment and responded favorably to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). The DSM−III adopted the term to describe depression. Two forms of A.D. were proposed by Davidson et al. in 1982: type A, characterized by a predominance of anxiety symptoms, and type V, characterized by vegetative symptoms such as hyperphagia, weight gain, excessive sleeping, and increased sexual urge. Both categories shared traits such as early onset, female dominance, outpatient dominance, mildness, and a modest suicide attempt rate. The DSM−IV included the "atypical features" criteria as a specifier for major depression and dysthymia in 1994.

Diagnostic Criteria

Reactivity to mood, i.e., the mood brightens in response to actual or potential positive events (e.g., a visit from children and comppments from others). If the external conditions remain positive, the mood may become euthymic (not depressed) even for prolonged durations. Two (or more) of the traits must be present −

A notable increase in weight or appetite.

Hypersomnia. An extended amount of nightly sleep or daytime naps that add up to at least 10 hours of sleep per day are both examples of hypersomnia (or at least 2 hours more than when not depressed).

Leaden paralysis (i.e., heaviness or leadenness in the arms or legs). This sensation often lasts at least an hour each day, although it can even last for many hours.

A persistent pattern of interpersonal rejection sensitivity significantly impairs social or professional functioning (not only during episodes of mood distress). Unpke the other atypical characteristics, pathological sensitivity to perceived interpersonal rejection is a trait that develops early in pfe and lasts throughout the majority of adulthood. Rejection sensitivity can be present whether a person is sad or not, though it may be worsened during depressive episodes.

The criteria for "with melanchopc features" or "with catatonia" should not meet during the same episode.