Gayatri Sundaram talks about Alpha Pain and Palliative Care, which stands out unique in its vision and mission from other Pain and Palliative Care units. Though executing apparently a Charitable trust, Alpha prefers to tag their activities as ‘responsibilities’ rather than  hallowed ‘charities’ by re-defining the hackneyed anecdotes of Palliative care.

Being a middle brow and getting on with a charity-oriented life simultaneously is somewhat like a bravado which when realized, Mr.K.M.Noordeen, the Humanitarian Award winner at last had to prostrate at the showbiz of modern life – He arranged a documentary show in the air conditioned auditorium of a Star hotel, invited people from all sectors of the society and standing on the dais in the limelight, shouted: ‘I’m here and I do all these things. See, Will you….?”

You can fill up those dots with any word which resonates anything relevant to the 20 minutes’ documentary titled ‘Aaravangalkkappuram’(Beyond the hustles and bustles).

It tells us about the painful realities existing beyond the unending festivities and pompous celebrations that fill our domain. It shows us the children of wrath who live next to our gate, but not seen or not taken care to see. It shows the dirty, muddy and charred ways leading to the ‘les miserables’ who is in a hammer out to outlive the life.

The documentary was a visual replica of a part of a mission that extended its compassionate minds and hands to those who were thrown beyond the sunny side of existence. The very name of the institution shades the vision behind it – Alpha – the Beginning. In fact, the man and men behind this trust ask the world to begin an already-existed something which can be done to improve the life and living condition of a suffering neighbor apart from all piss and wind.

Alpha Pain and Palliative Care

“Palliative care is an approach that aims to improve the quality of life of patients, and their families, facing life-threatening illnesses through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification, impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems: physical, psychosocial and spiritual.” W.H.O defines Palliative care like this.

There was a time when Palliative care used to be synonymous with terminal cancer care or the last sacraments. But now it encompasses all chronically ill and bed-ridden patients. When this equation came into implementation most of those who jazz around the world were amassed after it – India too was not behind in the caring and social service sector. Alpha Pain and Palliative Care also began to exercise their mission but not as to the patient-care but as to a social service.

Alpha, the beginning, starts with the ‘enliving’ of a hapless Ambujakshi from central Kerala, thrown into the fathoms of unending trauma, when her husband, succumbed to the rude destiny leaving two physically challenged daughters with her. That was in 1995.

Alpha’s assignment was ‘to improve her life’ so as to pull her back from suicide – the only way left to her. By providing a monthly pension scheme, however she could get on with a meal ticket.

It was the kick start of a canopying charitable mission in the central Kerala. Along with eminent and like-minded doctors, Mr.K.M.Noordeen, an ordinary Indian citizen, never a big-wig, has started the functioning of Alpha Pain and Palliative care, a novel branch of modern medicine. The placid village area of Trichur District, Edamuttam thus has been the seat of the trust.

To aware the public about the need of such a branch of medical care was the first thing in their agenda. For it, various seminars had been conducted throughout the village. A lot of persons allured by the charitable activities, realizing its non-profitable motive came forward full of beans to work as volunteers, thus the program has been geared up.

Next thing was a survey on the patients who were waiting for death as a burden and pulsating pain for the families. The survey unearthed the significant factor of the mission to which the need is to be concentrated – the unaffordable hospital care. Thus Alpha stretched out its functioning in Home Care. The volunteers went to their homes and extended their helping hands with smile. Those unfortunates had been forgotten about smile for years.

Afterwards, Alpha began to work as Alpha Pain and Palliative Clinic with all the hospital facilities plus palliative care. This particular type of approach could instigate at least some of the patients to outlive the wrath of God fell upon them. Alpha could bring back Thankamani, a 29 year old lady suffered from Rheumatoid Arthritis and left to live the life in the bed with restricted mobility, to walk with the assistance of a walking frame. So is the case with 46 year old Mohanan happened to fall from an areca nut tree and suffered a traumatic cervical spine injury and lost the mobility of his four limbs. A totally bed ridden Mohanan is now walking with a walking frame, thanks to the physiotherapy and boost of confidence he could receive from Alpha.

“Alpha gave free service and medicines regularly. They visited home every three days and spent more than an hour. In between these days they made phone calls and follow up on patient status. The best part I like about them is that during their visits we offered them tea and snacks but they denied it. They said they don’t accept anything from patients home because they don’t want to be partial in the service. They are committed to provide the same quality service even for the rich and poor patients. So they avoid accepting any gifts or hospitality offered.” Says a contented young man about the love and care his grandfather has enjoyed from Alpha after being abandoned from various hospitals.

Alpha then realized the bitter fact that, even after the cure, these people were ill-treated inside the society either because of ignorance or of unawareness. Hence sprouted Alpha Sakthi, Alpha Kuda and such rehabilitation programs through which these ‘forbidden’ people could earn money without being a permanent burden to the family. Thus small stationery shops, umbrella manufacturing units and like things has been rendered to them after the hospice care. You can see such fragmented shades where the victimized and marginalized spend the lives and earn the livelihood, under Alpha if you browse through this coastal village area.

Alpha was spreading out its canopy under the blues of Trichur District. Though the hospice and clinic are confined to the remote village of Edamuttam, the span of activities have extended to more than 68 Panchayaths and one emerging OP clinic in Palakkadu, with the active and voluntary participation of like-minded people.

Punarjani – a re-thinking

At times, ‘understanding’ becomes the most perplexed thing and it can be had only after getting deep into the fact. That is what happened here in Alpha. More than a peripheral financial or medical support, Alpha identified the ‘why me’ attitude which radiates negativity throughout the life of a home-bound bed-ridden patient that they understood incurable with the present amenities. Apart from providing Social rehabilitation, a need of Medical rehabilitation also flicked the activists while going into the truths.

Hence did come the thought of Punarjani meaning re-birth. As the Pain and Palliative Clinic bylines as a ribbon of hope, Punarjani tells all about life, sometimes a second life.

It is becoming more than 10 years the functioning of Alpha has been started. But it is known to the public of a less span due to lack of publicity. All these treatments, love, care, medication and everything rendered by Alpha are absolutely free of cost. But at the same time Alpha also provides the service of a permanent panel of more than 5 eminent doctors and visiting faculties comprising the numero uno s of Oncology, Radiotherapy, Neurology, Psychiatry and General Medicine departments, in the State. They are being assisted with specially trained nurses and altogether more than 50 paid employees are working in this charitable trust. Meanwhile when the thought of a Punarjani , an extending link, hit he nerves, Mr.Noordeen had to tell aloud the world (which was ignorant about Alpha), through the documentary preview, ‘Aaravangalkappuram’, the shots and frames of which drags us through the toughest roads on which Alpha staggers to reach the bed-ridden and forbidden.

At present more than 20 Pain and Palliative Care units are working in Trichur District including the one executed by the State Health Department. But what sets aside Alpha from the many is their updated and advanced programming and its implementations out of the so called bureaucratic red- tapism and bumbeldom. Substantially, a relief from the pain from all aspects is being wiped out absolutely by Alpha within its execution.

The Project Punarjai plans to go on with Alpha’s Home Care division after segregating the patients in to four main categories/clubs according to their physical inefficiency. They will be brought to the Physiotherapy Centre in the Alpha Clinic once or twice the week. Alpha takes pride to say that it owns the best Physiotherapy unit in the State. Along with the Physiotherapist, services of Psychologists and Speech Therapists also will be provided if necessary.

In Punarajani, they plan to set cultural programs among the club members to get rid of the distressing conditions of the hapless lives at least for a day of merriment. Indoor games and concurrence of the like-fated people in the club provides the lost ones to vent their sorrows and hurl out their loneliness.

Alpha provides scholarships to the children of the patients who are denied of further education, sometimes even a normal living condition. Alpha stands secular in its full means as its reach covers the needy irrespective of the color of the skin or color of the flag in a kingdom of democratic diversities!!!

Reaching beyond the trends

Though the aforesaid programs are being executed in Alpha in a peripheral means currently, through the new annex Punarjani, they expect to widen their sky-line of services so as to reach the needy sooner and closer. To implement this, they attribute a pivotal and vital role to community participation. As for any social service, man power and money power are the significant duo to accomplish the dream Punarjani a true one in the proximity.

‘Aaravangalkapuram’, the docu-fiction meant to popularize the dream project was a curtain-raiser for the mission-race. For fund-raising and people-participation, the inevitable part of the project, Alpha has to wander still more. Taking into bosom, the responsibility (never as charity), Alpha volunteers are on a run to render love and cuddles to those who are denied of such physical intimacy, to search for the needy, to drape the rotten wounds, to drench the dried up minds, to play with the challenged, to chat with the lost…..

Through Punarjani, Alpha plans to open more chapters and to protract their mission to the urbanized wastes. In a time when ‘use and throw’ tags the genre, Alpha is on the beat to check the thrown out wastes along the waysides and inside the harems of neglect and unawareness. Gathering it handfuls and giving back reformed is Alpha’s modus operandi contrary to the folklores of contemporary unction and bidding farewell.

Today’s fast paced life drags us through the turmoil of ‘less time and more work schedule’ which prompts many of us to have self-medication with least botheration about our internal organs though keen on the physical fitness. Dr.Anandam Gopinath turns you towards your kidney which is having a high market value outside and a ‘quintessential’ status inside.

Kidney stone  is  a cause of obstruction to the flow of urine. They are solid pieces of material that forms in a kidney out of susubstance in the urine. It can be as small as grain of sand or as large as a pearl. At times some are seen bigger. Anyways, these stones may be present inside the kidneys or ureters (tubes which carry urine from the kidney to the bladder) or in the bladder itself.

A small stone can grow large enough to occupy a considerable part of one kidney. A large stone in the kidney can take the shape of deer horn and is called a stag horn calculus then. The size and shape of the stones vary according to their composition. The size varies from those of sand particles to pebble size as stated already. There may be a shower of crystals following excessive intake of straw berries or rhubarb.

Causes

Renal stones are commonly seen in the 30-50 age groups, men being more commonly affected. The following conditions may be associated with stone formation:

1. Living and working under conditions where excessive loss of fluid by sweating occurs. This causes the salts in urine to be precipitated due to the high concentration.
2. Repeated urinary tract infections.
3. Disorders like gout (due to increased level of uric acid in the blood).
4. Faulty diet consisting of excessive spinach, straw berries etc.
5. Bed-ridden patients are more prone to this condition.
6. The predisposition to high levels of calcium in the urine may be passed on from           generation to generation.
7. People taking diuretics (water pills) and those who consume excess calcium-containing antacids can increase the amount of calcium in their urine and potentially increase their risk of forming stones. Taking excess amounts of vitamins A and D are also associated with higher levels of calcium in the urine. Patients with HIV positive who take the medication Indinavir (Crixivan) can form stones. Other commonly prescribed medications associated with stone formation include dilantin and antibiotics like Cefriaxone (Rocephin) and Ciprofloxacin (Cipro).

The size and shape of the stones vary according to their composition. The size varies from those of sand particles to pebble size as stated already. There may be a shower of crystals following excessive intake of straw berries or rhubar.

In some patients even if the stones are larger there may be no symptoms – while others with a small stone may suffer a lot. In some, there is dull pain in the back along the sides which is aggravated by movement or a sudden jolt. If the stone passes into the ureter it may produce a severe colic. This is a severe, sudden pain which starts at the side and back on the affected side and moves forwards towards the lower abdomen and inner thigh. It is a severe cramp, making the patient restless. The pain increases in intensity and may be accompanied by vomiting, sweating and passing of blood-stained urine.

Diagnosis

Urine analysis with a microscope can detect blood even if it is not appreciated by the naked eye. Sometimes, if the stone causes complete diagnosis

CT scanning of the abdomen without oral or intravenous contrast dye is the most commonly used diagnostic test. The scan will demonstrate the anatomy of the kidneys, ureter, and bladder and can detect a stone, its location, its size, and whether it is causing dilation of the ureter and inflammation of the kidney

Ultrasound is another way of looking for kidney stones and obstruction and may be useful when the radiation risk of a CT scan is unwanted (for example, if a woman is pregnant). Ultrasound requires a specially trained person to obtain the images, and therefore, it may not always be available.

In those patients who already have the diagnosis of a kidney stone, plain abdominal x-rays may be used to track its movement down the ureter toward the bladder

Treatment

If fever is associated with the symptoms of a kidney stone, this becomes an emergency, and medical care should be accessed immediately.

Urinary tract infections associated with a kidney stone often require urgent assessment and may need intervention by a urologist to remove or bypass the stone.

A person who has had an attack of renal colic may get repeated attacks when the stone moves. He is advised rest and warm compresses. Strong pain killers are given to reduce the pain. The most important part of the treatment is adequate intake of fluid. Enough fluid is to be taken to ensure a minimum urinary output of 3 liters per day. Small stones are passed spontaneously while larger ones are removed by surgery. Recently, laser treatment has been used to dissolve the stones.

Once a stone has been successfully treated further attacks can be prevented. A person who had renal colic once is advised by his surgeon to have approximately four liters of water daily. This is to be increased during the hot summer months.

“Imprisoned in every fat man, a thin one is wildly signaling to be let out”. Dr.Anandam Gopinath is here to help that thin one to be out from you, with some tips of diet and habits to be followed in order to chuck out the bad effects of being simply gadget-junkies.

Obesity is the most common metabolic disorder today. It is certainly the most talked about and written on, not only in terms of looks but good health also. In the modern affluent society there is an increased incidence of obesity.

Are you obese?

You are considered obese if you weigh 20% more than your ideal body weight according to size and age.

In modern times obesity is defined in terms of BMI, Body Mass Index. It is a mathematical calculation to find out whether you are overweight or not. See, being obese and being overweight are two different things. If your BMI is 30 or more, you are considered as OBESE. If the BMI falls between 25 and 29.9 you are OVER WEIGHT. Dividing your body weight in Kilograms by your height in meters x 2 will give you your BMI.

Another method of determining obesity is to use the ‘pinch’ test. In adults about half the body fat is located directly under the skin. A fold of skin and fat can be pinched away from the underlying bone from the back of the upper arm under the shoulder blade or the side of the lower part of the torso. If this fold is more than one inch in thickness you can consider yourself obese.

Which type you are?

There are two types of obesity. The first one is life-long obesity. In this type there is a genetic influence in addition to bad eating habits. There is a sudden spurt of weight gain during puberty in otherwise heavy children and the women gain weight with each pregnancy. This particular type is difficult to control. They lose weight during each program that they follow but regain their initial weight once the program is stopped.

The second type is the ‘adult onset’ obesity or the ‘middle age spread’. This is because we maintain the eating patterns of our youth and exercise less. Most cases of obesity are due to simple over-eating and no exercise. We hardly walk to work and manual labour is also less because of the availability of machines.

Bad effects

Obesity leads to a number of common diseases. It affects almost every system in the body. As you all know fat people have an increased risk of high blood pressure, diabetes mellitus, gall stones, arthritis and varicose veins. Due to the increased strain during respiration to move the ponderous thoracic wall, fat people have shallow breathing which leads to increased carbon-dioxide retention. This causes chronic fatigue and day time sleepiness. Remember ‘Fat Joe’ of the ‘Pickwick Papers’? Those moist, flabby, redundant skin folds are prone to fungal skin lesions. Fat women have irregular menstrual cycles and have difficult pregnancies and labour. Obese people are poor surgical risk patients.

Being overweight or obese may contribute to body dissatisfaction and low self-esteem that places individuals at risk for depression. Conversely, depression may increase weight over time through interference with the endocrine system or the adverse effects of antidepressant medication.

How to prevent

It is better to avoid obesity and easier not to put on those extra pounds than taking them off. Children should be taught goodeating habits and regular exercises.

Choose an active way of life. Make it a habit of climbing up the stairs instead of using the elevator and walk as much as possible. Weight reduction must be self-motivated the ultimate key to successful weight reduction being proper eating habits combined with enough physical activity. This means bringing about a change in your sedentary life style and once these changes are made a question of sticking to the pattern for a life time so as not to regain the weight lost.

Diet

‘Fad diets’ like water diet, reducing diets are of not much use. The same weight loss can be achieved by caloric restrictions. The aim is to achieve a negative caloric balance- an intake of 500 calories below the requirement will reduce half a kilogram. Crash dieting and total starvation are unwise although they might help to loss weight quickly. 1200 calories per day diet is recommended to start with. This could consist of:

For break fast – an orange, a half boiled egg, a slice of toast and coffee or tea with skimmed milk.

For Lunch – clear broth and fresh salad with a slice of bread and fruit.

For Dinner – lean roast beef, salad and a slice of bread.

Be Vegetarian

Apart from the above said diet for those who cannot live without eating a living being, doctors and researchers suggest the need of being a vegetarian. Going vegetarian is the single best thing you can do to avoid overweight. Well planned vegetarian diet provides you with all the nutrients that we need minus all the saturated fat, cholesterol and contaminants found in animal meat. Vegetarians tend to consume fewer calories than the meat eaters.

Yoga

Regular practice of yogasanas has an amazing effect on obesity and it s connected diseases. Regular exercises such as running and swimming, and practicing certain specific yogic postures like Paschimottasana, Bhujangasana, Sarvangasana, Halasana, Dhanurasana, Ardhamtsyendrasana and sun salutations et al are advisable.

Along with the asanas do prananyama. Keep fixed timings for lunch and dinner. Time difference between the meals must be four hours. Have a low fat meal with fiber rich vegetables and fruits. Don’t be hesitant to avoid sweets, milk, butter, cheese etc.

As the word indicates, headache is here where there is a head. But ironically, the brain seated inside the head is not at all sensitive to pain. Dr. Anandam Gopinath elucidates the common causes of headaches to make one aware of the preventive measures to avoid being subjected to a wresting headache.

Headache is the most common pain and, in one form or another, it affects almost 90% of the population. The headache – a pain or ache across the forehead or within the head – may be severe or mild in character and can last from under half an hour to three to four days. It may be accompanied by dizziness, nausea, nasal stuffiness or difficulty in seeing or hearing.

It may be due to a variety of underlying causes. These include excessive drinking or smoking, lack of sleep, hunger, emotional stress and disturbances, diseases of the eye, ear or nose, brain tumor or head injury. Some headaches are symptoms of illness – like viral infections, meningitis and anemia. Chronic headaches are usually tension headaches or migraines. Exposure to toxic gases – like carbon dioxide, which are common in polluted air – can cause headaches. Remember, even after 9 years, people who were at the proximity of the World Trade Center on that black September 11th, are still under constant headache!

Migraine, characterized by attacks of severe pain, affects women more than men. There is a strong family history and it often begins in childhood, before the age of 15. The period in between the attacks is usually pain free. An attack may last several days and is often preceded by psychological or visual disturbances. It is characterized by a pulsating or throbbing pain, usually on one side of the head and accompanied by dizziness, nausea, blurred vision and sensitivity to light. An attack may be precipitated by sudden changes in temperature, certain foods or hormonal changes (premenstrual).

The other chronic headache is a tension headache or muscle contraction head ache. The pain is steady, that is, on one or both sides of the head or may be a band-like sensation. This may last for weeks or months. It can be avoided by getting an adequate amount of sleep and exercise and by learning to cope with frustrations and anxieties. Find time to relax each day. This pain can be relieved by neck massage and a heating pad.

People with high blood pressure sometimes suffer from severe headaches. A headache due to acute sinusitis is short lived and typically commences in the morning or early afternoon and subsides by the evening. It is a dull, aching pain and is aggravated by changing the head position. Dental disease also causes head aches. Errors or refraction and diseases of the eye also cause this horrid pain.

Cluster headache is another pointed type headache where the cause id a little different to state immediately.

Feelings of hunger and thirst, not getting enough sleep, over work, missing meal times, use of certain drugs etc can also be the causes of this bleak state.

So to avoid such situation is the most prescribed way for the considerably harmless headaches.

Treatment of headaches depends on the underlying etiology or cause, but commonly involves analgesics.

Relief from head aches can be achieved by simple aspirin, but beware, take it according to the directions of your doctor. Remember, a double dose is not doubly effective and in fact is dangerous.

A cup of coffee may prove helpful in some cases – while a few may be relieved with just fresh air. Avoid excess use of alcohol and tobacco. If you must skip a meal have at least a candy or a fruit to prevent headache.

So try to be cool!

Depression is the most noxious disease, next only to cardio-vascular diseases, that grapples the modern world today. Dr.Dhanya Girish, analyses the gravity of the disease and the need of timely attention to be provided

“Wither is fled the visionary gleam..

Where is it now, the glory and the dream..”

Scribbled Wordsworth, in a frantic state, when he found himself in emptiness…., when an unknown morbidity dwarfed his meristem. He himself had once written: “My heart leaps up When I behold a rainbow in the sky So was it when I was a child So is it when I’m a man So be it when I grow old. Or let me die.” So, it is no wonder if he had committed anything extreme, but fortunately nothing happened, as he was very rich with a hoard of bosom friends. But in the case of the American poet Sylvia Plath, the thing was reverse. When she found an uncertainty in all phases of her life, she was resorted to kill herself, as she had been left alone with two infants. Such incidents of uncertainty, emptiness, eeriness, desperations, partings, failures, torturing illnesses, financial tightness….and like .. a long list of negativities constitute the human life. We, the humble humans are supposed to receive it wholeheartedly. No other go. If not, we will have to succumb to the state of ‘depression’- (the clinical connotation of the disease in which one loses oneself- sometimes for ever).

Where

If you ask where this happens the answer is globally. This is somewhat a global breakdown. However, now we have the statistics of the WHO showing a sky rocketing in the number of mental patients across the world. It also threatens that, by 2020, after cardiovascular diseases, depression is likely to be the biggest problem facing the world. So this has to be taken with utmost seriousness, if the world goes like this, (along with the drastic climate changes and natural calamities). Humans are not simply the inhabitants of the earth, but they are part and parcel of the macrocosm. So something that affects the Nature will definitely have a direct consequence in its microcosms. Subsequently, we face a variety of miseries both internally and externally, individually and socially. But in India, often depression is not even considered a form of illness until it is too late and beyond the curative stage. While in US, it is talking about the mental health openly, the stigma attached with mental ailments clogs Indian spectrum, to utter it aloud. So psycho-somatic symptoms are prevalent here which is the secondary stage of depression. The general physicians in India are least bothered to debunk it and they simply swirl around the same old scribbles of tabs and caps.

When

When someone in the family is depressed, the whole family is affected. Depression is a silent killer that sucks the energy, joy and self-esteem out of a person’s life. As in the case of the great bards, any one can have the similar feel at any time in life. We will have a lot of ups and downs in our life. If the ‘down’ or the ‘down feel’ persists, it has to be watched. The unfortunate thing is that, we often fail to recognize or identify this disease in its early stage. Even a close friend cannot come to a conclusion that his friend is undergoing a depressed state, though the latter is found in a melancholy mood. He will treat it, as it is of certain momentary stress – may be due to a failure in the exam or parting of his lover. Perhaps, that mood will perish within days. But if it persists, we can label it as depression, since feelings and emotions have its own curing methods to heal a wound. In fact, there is no known cause for depression. It is believed that genetics, stress or physical illness, medication etc may trigger an imbalance in brain chemicals resulting in depression.

Why

Depression is not a weakness, but a serious health disorder. True friends and trained therapists can help a depressed one, learn more positive ways to think, change behavior, cope with problems and handle relationships. But unfortunately, India is almost devoid of the aforesaid persons with a will for the same. Genetics, stress, medication, hormonal imbalance, substance abuse, character traits etc are the main causes of depression. But if you think for a while, these kinds of things were already there from the origin of human life. Then why the disease is exhilarating as never before, now? So the main villain comes out of the group. It is nothing but stress. Today’s life invites stress in every nuance of its modus vivendi. While the globe is revolving faster than before, even though it has been shrunk into a small village, humans are panting to cope with its pace. In India, the all pervading problem was unemployment, some two decades back. Now with the liberalization policies of the government, multi national companies came in, one by one. We welcomed them with red carpet. They were wedded to the economically back institutions here. They extended their helping hands and we assured with a return hand. Now we have our youth all employed with handsome packages. But if a rummage through this area will reveal that no one is sticking to such profession for long. No sincerity or adapted ness to the profession and vice versa. No professional ethics, only professional dress code. This trend has turned the Indian professional scenario, upside down. The hierarchical system provided in such organizations, are attributed to throw mean language at the subordinates and ‘motivating’ them to achieve ‘higher goals’. There is no space for clemency or palpable leniency, even at the pyre of one’s mother, if it is happened on the ‘closing date’. This triggers not his enthusiasm, but his frustrations which he reiterates towards his family members, creating some sort of strife and stress. The daily uneasiness lashes out in the home ambience; make the members detached with each other. They go out on their own. Each member becomes an independent island under the same roof.. Those who have no other choice either shrink into the television set or fall into the fathoms of depressions. That is why, the number of women patients (of depression) are twice more than that of men.

Women

Usually women will have to thrive in multiple roles, in the modern life. Even though she is well educated, she has to succumb to the role of home maker. If she is employed, she has to dabble across the arena. If she has had a habit of general reading, some kind of scratches and its smoldering will be there in her mind, to blow the fire inside. This may result in major depressions, which definitely require clinical therapies. Always women are incurred to shoulder the sole responsibilities of at least the kitchen and the kids. Without a shoulder to cry upon, sometimes she shakes off the communal frames or resort to either depression or self killing. This happens mainly in nuclear families where there is no space for sharing and caring, if the bread earner is a ‘target maniac’. Kids come from school with a hoard of projects and homework and they don’t have time to chat with the mom. Subsequently the mom becomes a maid and the wife becomes a bed mate in her shrinking world. Loneliness boosts the morbidity much stronger. She deviates from her daily routines to a sedentary state and trails off. Besides, it is common for mothers to feel a mild form of gloom that usually occurs a few days to weeks after giving birth, characterized by feelings of sadness, anger, anxiety and irritability.

Which (type)

Types of depressions are many in doctor’s word. But detecting and defining it is the most difficult part involved. If that part is over, we can categorize it under different subheads and treat it accordingly. Certain situations or an unpleasant experience can be so stressful that you my fall into depression. Death of someone beloved or extreme financial tightness can be some among those morbid situations. This kind of depression is easily curable, if diagnosed and treated properly. Sometimes prolonged periods of such situational depression can alter your brain functions resulting in chronic depression. This is a serious form of depression which affect the brain functioning. An imbalance in the various neurotransmitters can lead to some serious problems. Some depressions are related to the seasonal changes. Some people tend to stay in darkness, avoiding exposure to sunlight, often. Headache, irritability and fatigue are the symptoms of this kind of depression. Another one is bipolar depression, in which the patient is having emotions at two extremes – either being extraordinary joyful or extreme sadness. He swings between these two extremities without a concrete reason.

What (the doctor says)

If the ailment to which a doctor treats is continuing even after repeated medication, the doctor should have an introspection to check out whether this is psycho-somatic or fake feel. It is the first step involved in the treatment of depression. And this part absolutely lies with the doctor in charge. Timely treatment will make miraculous changes in the patient, is an assurance from the doctors. They give us these tips to follow: Avoid stress by not taking more than that you can handle. Whenever you have a tendency to blame yourself for a bad thing, remember that it arises out of the depressed state of your mind. Avoid being lonely and involve in certain things in which you are interested. Whenever you come across a situation in which you have to take a major decision, leave it to your trusted ones. Avoid the use of alcohols and other intoxicants, which will delay your recovery. Do yoga moderately. It will rejuvenate your body and mind. Take enough nutritious food, plenty of water and the prescribed medicines in time. Follow your doctor’s advice properly. Defeat your depression thus by detecting, diagnosing, defining and combating with it. It may take months to recover, sometimes, but don’t lose your heart. You can definitely have that visionary gleam, once you missed..