Thursday, August 23,1973
11
Depression Symptoms Described
By LYDIA BEEBE
Kansan Staff Writer
When Missouri Sen. Thomas Eagleton was dumped from the Democratic presidential ticket ten months ago, he became a national symbol in response to the problem of severe depression.
Despite the relevance that he had been hospitalized on three occasions for severe depression, much of the public supported Eagleton and his political career was not critically damaged. The reason for this may be that his problem is shared by many Americans.
One out of 10 Americans will be hospitalized sometime during his life for an emotional disorder, according to Dr. John Brauchi of the department of psychiatry at the University of Kansas Medical Center. At the Medical Center, 30 to 40 per cent of those hospitalized for such disorders suffer from depression.
BRAUCH AND DR. William McKenny,
the department of psychiatry, emphasized
his advice on how to handle cases.
University Daily Kansan
Brauch explained that doctors shied away from the term nervous breakdown because it medically referred to a nervous system disorder, but was commonly used to refer to any emotional problem. Severe depression is one of several affections commonly referred to as a nervous breakdown.
Anyone can suffer from severe depression, but there are two groups that are distinguisably more susceptible, according to McKnelly.
Sen. Eagleton
CERTAINLY PEOPLE who have family relatives, blood relatives, who have had severe depression constitute the greatest group at risk.
"Psychologically speaking, the rather perfectistic, compulsive individual who has to do everything a certain way may have a hard time doing with the 40s and 50s than the slobs or other groups that may well have other problems of their particular personality structures."$^{1}$
Brauchi added that another person highly prone to depression, was a 40-year-old woman, who had been living in a shelter.
McKenly described five principal symptoms of severe depression.
"THE MOST SINGLE characteristic symptom is a kind of early morning awakening—inssonia that comes on at one to three o'clock in the morning with great difficulty in getting back to sleep in a room over the years, has not had this symptom."
A second characteristic is loss of appetite and subsequent loss of weight.
He said a third sympathy, which must be taken in context only with the others, was an extreme loss of pep, energy and drive to do anything. "I feel like we are enjoying fishing; golfers won't enjoy golfing."
Official University of Kansas vehicles will be permitted to travel no faster than 10 miles an hour below the posted limit on highways, according to an order given late last week by Harry Schwaller, Kansas secretary of administration.
'THE ONLY POINT at which a depressed person is crazy is usually in his ability toHis own self-worth, at which he feels he is being entirely out-of-knowing with reality.
"Finally, you get in the most severe forms of depression a total slowdown of almost all the vital systems, especially the secretions. There's less saliva produced. There is less secretion by all the glands of the gut which can result in severe constipation. A reduced sexual drive is notoriously common," McKennelly said.
"A fourth and cardinal characteristic is, of course, the extreme sadness, often accompanied by feelings of great personal discomfort without any apparent reason to anyone else.
KU Moves to Beat Gas Shortage
Schwaller's ruling, which affects all state agencies, is an effort to reduce gasoline consumption by state-owned vehicles. Leo Ousdahl, assistant director of the KU physical plant, says that his staff will comply with any directive.
"We must ensure gasoline supplies" shewller said when he announced the new permit order.
"I WILL. ASK the citizens of Kansas to report directly to my office in the state capitol building any marked state automobile traveling over these (reduced) speed limits," Schwaller said in his directive.
Besides ordering the mandatory speed reduction, Schwaller directed a restriction of air conditioning using when weather permeates. This meant that he save 10 per cent on gasoline consumption.
re also urged that automobiles be kept in good operating condition and that good driving habits be used. He encouraged the use of car pools in driving to from work, as well as for on-site training for all Topeka-based state agencies would be in operation beginning yesterday.
ALMOST 50 STATE-OWNED vehicles are used by the KU building and grounds department and only three of them are ever driven on the highway, Ousdahl said. He said he, director Harry Buchholz and a man who runs errands for the department were the only ones who drove the vehicles on the highway.
Keith Nicech, vice chancellor of business affairs, said the University had an annual contract that supplied KU with a limited quantity of gas. Once that supply runs out, the company has no obligation to supply the University with any more gas.
ACCORDING TO NITCHER, the University owns seven or eight cars in a carpool, a few department cars and a few truck/trucks, all of which operate on campus.
"Our first step will be to keep from running out of gas for maintenance vehicles," said Nitcher. "We'll probably have to send out cars to filling stations instead of filling them at the building and grounds pumps."
"When the gas runs out, we'll be in the same boat as anyone up and down the street," Nitcher said. "We have money. That's no problem. It will just be less convenient if we have to go somewhere else for gas."
Curator Wins Post
Robert Hoffmann, curator of mammals at the Museum of Natural History, has been elected vice-president of the American Society of Mammalogists, which has 3,000 North American members. Hoffmann will be in charge of the activities of the North American members at the next annual meeting, to be held in Moscow. Hoffmann is a co-chairman of the organization's publication, the Journal of Mammalogy, and is chairman of the organization's committee on international affairs.
Sacimotor retardation, an extreme reduction of bodily movements, is another indication, Brauchi said. He pointed out that the patient also underwent intense mental pain, including anguish, self-disgust and an extreme sense of guilt.
Most people do not realize the seriousness of severe depression, both doctors agreed. A survey conducted by Mckenna depresses die from suicide, and 35 to 40 per cent of all completed suicides in a sample Midwestern city were committed by people with depression, from a form of depression, according to McKenna.
What do you do if someone is severely depressed?
FURTHERMORE, he said, is it a myth that one who talks about suicide won't do it. McKennely emphasized that 80 per cent of all suicidees have indicated their intention to die.
The doctors said most people do the wrong thing when someone was severely depressed. The family of a severely depressed person usually tries to cheer him up with logic, telling him things will get better. But the therapist makes the depressed person feel worse because really can't cheer and things just don't seem to get better.
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HE SAID STATISTICS showed that 60 to 70 per cent of the depressives receiving medication had a good response in three to six weeks.
Communication is essential with a severe depressive, continued Braucht, because
In extreme cases of depression, hospitalization is practically the only way to prevent suicide, Brauchi said. In less serious cases, a family physician or psychiatrist can administer anti-depressive medications.
$\pi$ an the really rather wonderful breakthroughs in this therapy, . . . the chemicals that have been devised to treat cancer have been the most rewarding, Brauchi said.
"But electro-shock therapy is, has been and remains the most certain and surest way to successfully treat the severely depressed. By all the modern statistics available, they indicate that in severe depression cases, electro-shock therapy clearly restores the treatment of choice." Brauchi said.
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