(Catherine Harrison, PhD, January 10, 2008) B. Drugs that remedy or lessen effects Antipsychotic and atypical antipsychotic drugs are used to treat this disorder such as: Risperidone and Clozapine among others. C. How these drugs help These medications cannot “cure” the illness, but they can take away many of the symptoms or make them milder. In some cases, they can shorten the course of an episode of the illness as well. These medications affect neurotransmitters that allow communication between nerve cells.
Substance abuse can cause depression and depression can cause substance abuse. Stress is also associated with deficits in hippocampal functioning, the critical brain structure that inhibits stress reactivity and mediates contextual cues. Moreover, drug withdrawal leads to reduced hippocampal functioning via increased cortisol output (Keith, Roberts, Wiren, & Crabbe, 1995). Severity of declarative memory deficits
Neurotransmitters such as these ones affect the limbic system which is the control centre in the brain for emotions and drive control. This theory is founded by the effectiveness of antidepressants which increase neurotransmitter levels and in turn, lesson symptoms of depression. This puts across the idea that low levels of serotonin may cause the disorder. Teuting et al's Research that also supports this theory. He carried out a study looking at the urine of depressed patients and found that they had distinctively low levels of a compound associated with serotonin, however this can be questioned at the research does not establish cause and effect, it is only correlation.
This medication is used in the treatment for patients with a disorder known as mania. Patients with mania experience a frenzied mood, or an abnormally excited mood. The side effects for this medication are as follows, drowsiness, blank facial expression, shuffling walk, agitation, nervousness, difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, changes in skin color, widening or narrowing of the pupils, difficulty urinating, these are the less harmful side effects according to the National Institute of Mental Health (http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/mental-health-medications). According to this same article the more severe side effects to this medication are as follows, fine worm like tongue movements, flu like symptoms, fast irregular heartbeat, sore throat chills or other signs of infection, neck cramps, difficulty breathing or swallowing,
Antidepressants on the other hand by balancing neurotransmitters such as serotonin and epinephrine witch can cause depression if not sufficiently balanced. Anxiolytic drugs are used to combat anxiety disorders one drug in this field is benzodiazepines (Bzs) they work by releasing more (GABA) witch slows down the nerve transmission calming people down. This drug is effective in areas such as phobias. Another biological therapy is ECT, it is a surgical based treatment commonly used on manic depressives who haven’t responded to antidepressants. This treatment is administrated to a patient by putting a patient into an unconscious state then passing a current of 0.6 amps through the brain.
Bipolar disorder is a mental illness that involves both manic and depressive episodes. While mania and depression are two extremely different mood episodes, bipolar disorder unifies both. For an individual diagnosed with bipolar, these moods can occur either at the same time or within a few days or weeks of each other. Although bipolar disorder is typically thought of synonymously with the mood disturbance of an individual, in fact, cognition, motivation, and physical functions are majorly affected as well. For example, during a depressive episode, mental processes are slowed down, and are also constituted by feelings of self-worthlessness and anhedonia, loss of pleasure.
Narcotic agonists-antagonists react with some opioid receptor sites to stimulate activity and block other opioid receptor sites. These drugs are not as addictive as pure narcotic agonists (p. 414). Narcotic antagonists, which work to reverse the effects of narcotics, are used to treat narcotic overdose or to reverse unacceptable adverse effects (p. 417). B) Describe the therapeutic actions, indications, contraindications, the most common adverse reactions, and important drug-drug interactions for a narcotic. The narcotic agonist act at specific opioid receptor sites in the CNS to produce analgesia, sedation, and a sense of well-being.
alogia (the loss of fluent speech) avolition (the loss of motivation) and affective flattening (a reduction in the range of emotional intensity). People who have been diagnosed with schizophrenia will not all display the same behaviour, so the major classification systems include lists of symptoms only some of which need to be present before a diagnosis can be made. The DSM-IV-TR classification system has the following diagnostic criteria: At least a month’s duration of two or more positive symptoms, e.g. delusions and hallucinations. Delusions are bizarre beliefs that seem real to the person with schizophrenia but are not real.
Biological explanations of depression – (Biochemical) The biochemical explanation claims that depression is the cognitive state resulting from imbalances in brain chemistry that can be controlled in many cases by antidepressant drugs known as tricyclic drugs. However, it does not claim these imbalances are genetic in origin – and, indeed, they may be the consequence rather than the cause of some aspects of depression. There are three brain chemicals principally involved. These are noradrenalin, serotonin and dopamine. Post-mortems of depressed people do not show abnormally low levels of noradrenalin.
Symptoms usually include little concern for the rights of others and carelessness for what is going on around you. Bipolar disorder is a condition in which a person has periods of depression and periods of being extremely happy or being cross or irritable. They may also have distortions of perception and impairment in social functioning. Depressive disorder is a mood disorder in which feelings of sadness, loss, anger, or frustration interfere with everyday life for weeks or even longer. This is similar to bipolar disorder in the fact that you have mood swings of sadness versus happiness in random periods of time for large amounts of time.