Treatment of Dysthymia

As similar with most other mental disorders there could be two modes of treatment for Dysthymia.

Medical and psychotherapeutic Treatment Of Dysthemic Disorder:

Medical treatment involves use of anti depressants and anti anxiety drugs.Anti depressants were found to be effective in most of the cases depending upon the response of the patients for different categories of these anti depressants. While anti anxiety drugs can be used for the patients with chronic symptoms of insomnia, fatigue, or tension.
In the psychotherapeutic treatment which is equally or sometimes even more important than medical treatment involves and assessment of patients suicidal or self destructive potential and helping him create and maintain a positive and hopeful view of life. Various therapies which were found useful are cognitive, behavioral with social skills training. Whatever type of psychotherapy is used should be accompanied by appropriate supportive measures like continued education and reassurance to the patient about his improvement and the characteristics of this illness so that he can properly follow the instructions from the therapist.

Causes Of Dysthymia

The exact cause of Dysthymia is still to be founded.While the studies till date show that the major reasons could be genetic or biochemical in nature.Certain nuero transmitters which are not present in desired amounts play an important role.Neuro tansmitters are those chemicals secreted inside the brain which help in communication between the nerve cells.Serotonin and norepinephrine are the two neuro transmitters whose low levels are significant in the occurance of this depression. As per the studies it was found that women inheritantly have low levls of serotonin, could be the reason why they are more prone to depression.

This depression passes down from generation to generation .The Dysthymia has a genetic role,was confirmed by the studies on identical twins.If one of the twins suffers from depression then the chances of its occurance in the other twin are more than 70%. Apart from these biochemical and genetic backgrounds dysthymia is supported by cratin other environmental factors also like problems in relationships,financial stresses or the lose of some loved one or basically any kind of emotional setback.Alcohol or drug abuse ,a past history of depression and medical dependence of some kind help manifest this disease more easily.