Seasonal Affective Disorder

Essay # 52681

Medical and Health
Psychology

An explanation of Seasonal Affective Disorder including the symptoms and possible treatments for this disease.

2,682 words () | 19 sources | MLA | 2004 Australia

Paper Summary:

This paper offers some information of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) which is a depressive condition, seasonal in onset and occurs primarily throughout winter periods. The paper includes a review of the current literature and a proposal for an Australian study. High latitude locations, such as Norway, sport a high prevalence of winter SAD with mid-latitude locations such as China and Japan, experiencing reverse SAD, due to severity of symptoms occurring throughout summer periods rather than winter periods. Such review of the literature leaves methodology for a study within the mid-latitude location of Australia to concentrate upon hypotheses concerning the prevalence of both winter and summer SAD, with a higher prevalence of summer SAD anticipated.

From the Paper:

""Seasonal Affective Disorder is a debilitating psychiatric disorder, which has only been formally recognized throughout the last two decades. SAD is a "course specifier" for Major Depressive Disorder or Bipolar Disorder within the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual 4th edition (DSM-IV). This specification denotes that depressive episodes must be present within two consecutive years throughout specific seasons (ie. primarily winter however autumn episodes have been documented) with remission occurring, as long as psychosocial stressors are absent, throughout spring and summer periods (Lam and Levitan, 2000). Besides symptoms typically characteristic of depression such as loss of energy, irritability, fatigue, tendency to oversleep, daytime drowsiness, and social withdrawal; carbohydrate craving and resulting weight gain are atypical symptoms of SAD."