Depression Webinar

A webinar is exactly what you would predict it to be...a seminar on the web. We were introduced to this different type of presentation with the topic of depression, meaning that we listened to a webinar about depression. More specifically, the webinar was about depression in teens and young people, which clearly has the potential to relate to students of our age.

Dr.Stringaris, the presenter, definted depression as: "Five (or more) of the following symptoms have been present during the same 2-week period and represent a change from previous functioning; at least one of the symptoms is either (1) depressed mood or (2) loss of interest or pleasure."

There were a few different symptoms mentioned, all pretty similar to what we had learned in previous depression presentations. However, it is always interesting to compare different people's definitions of a disorder to gain further understanding.

After explaining more about what depression is, and how to diagnose, he went on the share some statistics. Here are some two that are pretty concerning:

• Adolescents with major depression are up to 30 times more likely to die of suicide
• In its severe form, it affects about 9% of adolescents

With that Stringaris explained the main reasons for depression: genes and environment. 30-50% of the liability to depression is due to genetic factors, meaning that because of the genetic buildup to a person, they might be more susceptible to become depressed from a certain thing than another person with different genes. The environment aspect is essentially the same as that in our last presentation from the on-campus therapists - life events, stressful situations, alcohol abuse, deaths of loved ones, etc. can all cause depression.

One major concept to understand is that those with depression have a negativity bias, meaning that they miss the positive and cannot hope to see the good in situations. In other words, they gain a pessimistic mindset and consider everything in their lives to be negative. This is not the fault of the person affected, as their brains are actually affected to create this negative aura. One way to determine if someone is overwhelmed in this negativity bias, is if they rarely smile and just generally seem constantly unhappy. 

Then there is the motivation and reward processing part of depression. Those who are depressed tend to not receive the same feeling of achievement and joy in success, as those unaffected. This can lead to people not even putting in the effort to achieve something in the first place, given that they do not feel the same emotions in success. Without this effort the person affected may become lackadaisical and overall fail to put in effort for a variety of different tasks. On the reverse side, if one has a damaged reward system within their brain, depression may be caused for all the same reasons.

The webinar had a slides presentation with audio over it, and lasted about an hour.

It is essential that depression is identified right away, because if not the subject might consider overdosing, personal harm, or even suicide. Each of these have the potential to lead to serious harm, and therefore being diagnoses straightaway is necessary. Stringaris explains that this may be difficult, because one might be so focused on the irritability or lack of effort given by the subject, and not link it to depression. If the subject is unwilling to discuss the matter, then it is best to diagnose them based on the definition mentioned at the beginning...if the subject is exhibiting the general symptoms of depression, then they are most likely depressed. Diagnosis should also address presence of manic symptoms and underlying medical causes. In any case of uncertainty, a risk assessment is very important to determine if they are considering suicide or self-harm. 

Ending the webinar, Stringaris listed some different medications that can help with suicide to restore the mind to its original, healthy state.

Reflecting on this webinar, I do not think it was the most effective way to take in all this information because it was frankly rather dry. We had heard much of it all previously, which allowed the accumulation of information to come a bit easier, but nonetheless it was not great. Perhaps it would have been better with a speaker with a more easily understood accent, or who spoke with more inflection, or who provided more interesting media. Still, it was interesting to explore a different form of online presentations to come to this conclusion that I prefer other types of learning.