Receiving the diagnosis of a chronic disease or cancer is a traumatic, life-changing event. Unfortunately, the mental health effect of the incident is often obscured by attention to the physical disorder and the inability to determine “appropriate sadness” from clinical depression.
Researchers have developed a new tool to detect depression that will improve patients’ ability to come to terms with their disease.
Depression affects 25 percent of patients with advanced cancer – the stage at which the disease has begun to spread from its original tumor. At this stage, depression is difficult to diagnose as symptoms can be confused with a patient displaying ‘appropriate sadness’ – feelings which commonly result from suffering a terminal illness.
Accordingly, a University of Liverpool research team has created a method of testing for depression so clinicians can introduce additional treatment to enable patients to cope with the cancer more effectively. The tool could also be applied to sufferers of other serious illnesses such as Parkinson’s Disease and chronic heart disease.
Based on a screening system originally developed for sufferers of post-natal depression, the new tool - known as the ‘Brief Edinburgh Depression Scale’ (BEDS) - includes a six-step scale that assesses a cancer patient’s mental condition. The test includes questions on worthlessness, guilt and suicidal thoughts.
Read more . . .
No comments:
Post a Comment