| Health
DYSTHYMIA: What type of disease is this?
Dysthymia: An ancient illness of the soul. Hippocrates used to talk about
this subject since more than 2500 years ago. Currently, almost 5% of the
world population is affected by this disease. In ancient Greek, it meant bad
mood, today is a disease. The current international neuropsychiatric
diagnosis defines it as a physiological dysfunction of the humour. It
affects more women than men and it tends to manifest mostly on people
belonging to low social classes.
A dysthymic patient does not suffer from depression; neither gets blocked,
nor gets discouraged, on the contrary, does she or he loose interest on the
pleasure of living, remaining immune to the sense of duty and
scrupulousness. The 2000 Nobel Prize winner of Medicine, Arvid Carlsson
affirms that such humour dysfunction is originated by the lack of dopamine
which is the neurotransmitter object of his investigation and also has been
previously associated with schizophrenia and later with motor activity
disorders (Parkinson’s disease). As well, it influences the capacity of
experiencing pleasure. However, there is a treatment for dysthymia called
amilsupride which directly acts on the pleasure neurotransmitter and it
lasts two years long. The first diagnosis of dysthymia was made by Doctor
Hagop S. Akiskal, psychiatric professor and director of the International
Mood Centre of the University of San Diego (California), when he treated a
patient that was referred to him by one his psychoanalyst’s colleagues who
was already treating him. This patient was an active man without any
symptoms of depression, and while asleep on the doctor’s chair during his
sessions, manifested alterations on the Rem brain waves similar to those
patients that suffered from depression. From this point, Doctor Akiskal’s
studies began, to achieving the Nobel Prize in the year 2000 by presenting
the thesis that defended his theory of dysthymia as a disease that needs to
be considered as a personality disorder and has to be treated with
medication. Additionally, his thesis explained this disease as a type of
humour depression characterized by light symptoms to be considered as
chronic normally presented during adulthood. It is an insidious disease that
confuses many patients and doctors. In fact, dysthymics do not seem
depressed and speak with considerable competency about depression; they are
sensitive and show empathy for others. They also have humble emotions and
feel for other people. It is like an aristocracy of the suffering; the so
called pathologic sadness of the dysthymic is different from the natural
sadness because it has neither reason nor path: it is chronic. But, how do
we know for certain that people who are slightly difficult in character will
not end up being treated with medication as dysthimics are? Doctor Akiskal
emphasizes: “Dysthimics patients are as equally healthy as a diabetic person
with slightly high levels of glycaemia ”.
Many characteristics of the human personality are distributed in a continuum
that goes from health to pathology. We simply intend to identify the
characteristics of the disease. On the other hand, from the psychiatric
point of view, many great dysthimics were Lucretius, Pascal, Montaigne,
Puskin and Baudelaire, so?
|
