Usually underdiagnosed and undertreated, major depression and anxiety disorders are encountered commonly in patients with CAD and patients referred for evaluation of chest pain. However, a burgeoning…

As with other medical disorders, effective treatment of major psychiatric illnesses such as major depression and panic disorder, respectively, require patient access to informed health…

The neurocircuitry of anxiety has been postulated to arise from the amygdala, the brain area that registers the emotional significance of environmental stimuli and stores emotional memories. The efferent pathways from the central nucleus…

Relatively consistent point prevalence rates of depression have been documented in patients with CAD, ranging from 15 to 23 percent, despite the potential methodologic weaknesses of some of the studies (such…

Clinical Manifestations

Bipolar disorder is characterized by unpredictable swings in mood from mania (or hypomania) to depression. Some patients suffer only from recurrent attacks of mania, which in its pure form is associated with increased…

Mood Disorders
Mood disorders are characterized by a disturbance in the regulation of mood, behavior, and affect. Mood disorders are subdivided into (1) depressive disorders, (2) bipolar disorders, and (3)…

Substance-Induced Mood Disorder

Substance-induced mood disorder is diagnosed when medications, other psychoactive substances, ECT, or phototherapy are proximate events and the likely cause of the mood disturbance. All aforementioned types of mood…

Cyclothymic disorder is a recurrent, chronic, mild form of bipolar disorder in which mood typically oscillates between hypomania and dysthymia. It is not diagnosed if a person has had either a manic episode or a…

Dysthymic disorder is a mild, chronic form of major depression.

Epidemiology
The lifetime prevalence is 6%.

Etiology
Because dysthymia is often conceptualized as a milder, chronic form of major…

The bipolar disorders are bipolar 1 disorder, bipolar II disorder, and cyclothymia.

Bipolar I Disorder

Bipolar I disorder is the most serious of the bipolar disorders and is diagnosed after at least one episode…

Bipolar II disorder is similar to bipolar I disorder except that mania is absent in bipolar II disorder and hypomania (a milder form of elevated mood than mania) is the essential diagnostic finding.

Unipolar disorders are major depressive disorder and dysthymic disorder.

Major Depressive Disorder