Diagnosis & Treatment

Feeling depressed and wonder if you should call the doctor about treatment? Learn when to call the doctor about depression symptoms and how your doctor will make a depression diagnosis and a treatment plan.

How Is Depression Diagnosed?
1. What Does a Doctor Look For? Find out what your doctor needs to know to make a depression diagnosis and the questions he or she might ask.
2. Tests for Depression Learn about the different tests your doctor might use when making a depression diagnosis. Find out if these tests signify depression or if they rule out other serious illnesses.
3. Depression Diagnosis To diagnose depression, your health care provider will ask you questions about your symptoms and family history. You may be asked to fill out a questionnaire about your symptoms.
Treating Depression
1. Types of Treatments Your treatment plan for depression will depend on the type you have and how severe it is.
2. What Happens During Treatment? If your doctor thinks you’re depressed, your first treatment will depend on what the doctor thinks is going on.
3. Depression Treatment Tips To get better, you need to take an active role in your treatment. You can't be passive as a patient. Taking charge of your treatment is one way to feel in control again. Here are some tips.
Medications for Depression
1. Drug Treatment for Depression There are a variety of medications that can be used to treat depression. These antidepressants all work to take away or reduce the symptoms of depression.
2. How to Take Antidepressants As you approach taking antidepressants to treat depression, it is important to keep these points in mind.
3. Maintenance Medications Antidepressants are some of the best treatments we have for depression. But these drugs don't cure depression in the way that antibiotics cure infections. You will probably need to continue medication even after you feel better.
4. Antidepressants List The following are some of the depression medications (antidepressants) available in the U.S.
Other Depression Treatments
1. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Learn why cognitive behavioral therapy might be used to treat depression, how this approach works, and what to expect in sessions.
2. Psychotherapy Psychotherapy -- or "talk therapy" -- is an effective treatment for clinical depression. On its own, it may not be enough to treat severe depression. But it can play an important role when used with other treatments, including medications.
3. Psychodynamic Therapy Psychodynamic therapy is designed to help patients explore the full range of their emotions, including feelings they may not be aware of.
4. Brain Stimulation Therapies When medication fails to ease the symptoms of clinical depression, brain stimulation techniques such as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), for example, can be used to treat major depression that hasn't responded to standard treatments.
5. Interpersonal Therapy Interpersonal therapy, or IPT, is a short-term, focused treatment for depression. IPT has been shown to be effective in treating adolescent depression and is commonly recommended as a treatment for depression in children.

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