A major depressive episode is the cluster of symptoms of major depressive disorder. The description has been formalised in psychiatric diagnostic criteria such as the DSM-IV and ICD-10, and is characterized by severe, highly persistent depression, and a loss of interest or pleasure in everyday activities, which is often manifested by lack of appetite, chronic fatigue, and sleep disturbances (somnipathy). The individual may think about suicide, and indeed have an increased risk of actually attempting suicide.
In addition to the emotional pain endured by those suffering from depression, significant economic costs are associated with depression. In fact, American and Canadian studies have indicated that the costs associated with depression are greater than those associated with hypertension, and equal to those of heart disease, diabetes, and back problems.
Read more about Major Depressive Episode: Criteria, Diagnostic Caveats, Treatment, Demographics
Famous quotes containing the words major and/or episode:
“When I see that the nineteenth century has crowned the idolatry of Art with the deification of Love, so that every poet is supposed to have pierced to the holy of holies when he has announced that Love is the Supreme, or the Enough, or the All, I feel that Art was safer in the hands of the most fanatical of Cromwell’s major generals than it will be if ever it gets into mine.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“The press is no substitute for institutions. It is like the beam of a searchlight that moves restlessly about, bringing one episode and then another out of darkness into vision. Men cannot do the work of the world by this light alone. They cannot govern society by episodes, incidents, and eruptions. It is only when they work by a steady light of their own, that the press, when it is turned upon them, reveals a situation intelligible enough for a popular decision.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)