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DEPRESSED? NO...YOU'RE SUFFERING FROM MODERN LIFE

Modern life is depressing us all

Friday August 17,2007

By Victoria Fletcher

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DOCTORS are diagnosing patients with depression when they are simply anxious or stressed, a psychiatrist has claimed.

Professor Gordon Parker believes the medical criteria for depression is so broad that is has become “absurd”.

The Australian psychiatrist believes that in many cases doctors are confusing distress that is part and parcel of life with depression.

And he insists that doctors are too readily prescribing anti-depressants to patients who do not need them.

“Depression will remain a non- specific ‘catch-all’ diagnosis until common sense prevails,” he said.

Writing in the British Medical Journal, Professor Parker, of the University of New South Wales, said it is “normal to be depressed” following his own study which followed 242 teachers.

Anti-depressants come with a range of side-effects. About 25 per cent of patients have problems when they try to stop taking them and studies have found they can cause a rise in suicidal thoughts and actions.

Two recent studies have linked the drugs to a drop in bone density leading to osteoporosis and a dramatic fall in the number of sperm a man can produce.

Prof Parker claims the descriptive profile of major depression sets a “low threshold” for diagnosis.

The criteria require a person to be in a “dysphoric mood” for two weeks which includes feeling “down in the dumps” or appetite change, sleep disturbance, drop in libido and fatigue.

Professor Parker said: “A low threshold for diagnosing clinical depression risks treating normal emotional states as illness.

“Now, antidepressant drugs have a large share of the drug market. Reasons for the overdiagnosis include lack of a reliable diagnostic model and marketing of treatments beyond their true utility in a climate of heightened expectations.”

Under the latest Government guidelines doctors are paid extra to ask patients two simple questions. The questions are: “During the past month have you been bothered by feeling down, depressed or hopeless?”

And: “During the past month have you been bothered by having little interest or pleasure in doing things?”

If you answer yes to the questions, approved by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence in 2004, you could be put on Prozac.

Many GPs are dropping the test because they don’t believe it is good for patients.

DEPRESSED? NO...YOU'RE SUFFERING FROM MODERN LIFE

17.08.07, 8:18am

Or you are a Briton treated as a second class citizen in your own country.

Governed by clowns that now insist we pay benefits and pensions to half of Europe and allow the criminal scum of Europe to be herded to our shores.

• Posted by: The_Way_I_See_It • Report Comment