Since education and patient's state of mind, i.e, depression play important role in the outcome of the study, the level of education and the measure of depression being used are both important details that are interesting to know. Understanding the disease process may require some educational background to help maintain some perspective towards recovery. Being depressed due to a severe illness is a common and natural reaction but could also become detrimental and a disease in itself if left untreated.
Dear Ben Martinez ,
In my view, it could be very beneficial and practical if you would find a solution to predict the level of depression for each patient by EEG signal processing.
Very clever and intriguing idea. I like your thinking, Aslan Modir. I see that you're an engineer as well. As a person who was trained in exact science like mathematics, I would like to get more precise clinical diagnosis and treatment when comes to medical practice. Unfortunately, there's still way too much unknown and variables in human body and mind to make medical science as a true "exact" science such as mathematics where 1+1 is always equal 2 no matter what or where. You should invent such an EEG machine to read people's mind and feeling and not just to falsely detect lies as in lie detector haha...
Ben I think that the level of depression using instruments in quite useful by detecting different frequencies of electrical signals travel across the brain. But perhaps It can only provide the information about how the depression respond to the brain. I want to add something more:
1. THOUGHT PROCESS (BY surveying patients past or history)
2. DIET (what you eat effects body metabolism, enzyme secretion and affect our mood.
3. SOCIETY AND LIVING STANDARD (current most of the depression cases are because of bulling and abuse)
All these parameters can provide the exact information about how depression works and level of depression statistically.
Vikas, thanks for your answer. I agree that there must be changes that occur in the brain during thought processes and emotional experiences. In addition to electrical impulses, we also produce different chemical signatures being produced by our neuroendocrine system and metabolic byproducts from the thought processes. The changes that occur during the feeling of "depression" is obviously quite the opposite to the feeling of "happiness or elation". The same thing can be said about many other state of mind from the feeling of "anger" vs "peaceful mind" and "anxiety" vs "calmness", etc. The brain and the mind are indeed the last frontier in medicine that hold the key not only to our health but to humanity as a whole.
Reactive depression that occurs as a result of an adverse life event is normal and to be expected but should not develop into clinical depression which is an illness in itself. In the study of the stroke patients mentioned above, the length and type of depression experienced by the patients are important to relate to their recovery process and resiliency. I would imagine that patients with short period of reactive depression fare better compared to the prolonged period and the ones that develop clinical depression.
Dear Ben Martinez,
That's right. The mental state of a person suffering from certain diseases is a particularly important issue in the context of the prospects of recovery from the disease. Deteriorating mental state, anxiety, depression, fears of a medical condition, possible cure etc. may worsen overall health and the body's overall resistance to various pathogenic microorganisms. Therefore, during the illness, you should also take care of your mental state so that it improves. Improving your mental state can help a lot in the healing process of various medical conditions.
Greetings,
Dariusz Prokopowicz
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Psychology
- Cognitive Science
- Mind