Appropriate treatment strategy
The case of the 28-year-old female exhibit a number of disturbing signs. They include frequent headaches, chronic fatigue, sleep difficulties, lack of concentration, anxiety, loss of appetite, and weight loss. To help this patient, it is vital to analyze the symptoms correctly, provide a diagnosis, and consider the treatment options, as these can help reveal appropriate methods to heal the disorder.
One of the most crucial tasks of the symptoms analysis process is understanding the diagnosis. The symptoms exhibited by the patient hint towards the high likelihood of depression. This disorder is marked by the signs, which coincide with those revealed during patient’s evaluation. The patient experiences the depressed mood for the prolonged time period, and it affects her psychosocial functioning. The rationale for this diagnosis is built on the idea that patient constantly experiences lack of interest towards her life, even to those things, which brought her satisfaction in the past (Christensen et al., 2020). In addition, she feels guilty because she loses her children even though it is not true. There also exists a tight connection between the physical symptoms and psychological symptoms. Frequent headaches are also the sign signifying the high possibility of depression. There exists a causal link between headaches and psychiatric disorders supported by the evidence that headache complains account for 68% of patients with first-episode depression (Wei et al., 2016). However, in order to confirm presence of depression, special tests should be performed.
The differential diagnosis, which should be also considered, is the tension type headache (TTH). It is a frequent type of headache where the patients suffer from mild or severe headache and experience disability at work and private life. This disorder is marked by the high socioeconomic burden and psychological disorders often accompany this condition (Song et al., 2016). Patients with TTH have no significant difference from those with migraine, which is often accompanied by depression (Song et al., 2016). For that reason, understanding the nature of the headache is vital, as it could help to form the right treatment strategy.
Considering the possible diagnoses for the patient’s medical condition, it is necessary to perform a special estimation. There are two most common depression screening tools for adults, the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ)-2 and PHQ-9, both of which perform clinically and diagnostically well (Siniscalchi et al., 2020). The screening tools proving the nature of the patient’s mood disorder can help to prescribe the right treatment. If the patient’s diagnosis of depression is confirmed, then cognitive-behavioral therapy and antidepressants, as well as electroconvulsive therapy should be prescribed. The reaction of the patient towards this treatment will result either in its continuation, or trying other treatment options like light therapy, transcranial magnetic simulation, vagal nerve simulation, deep brain stimulation and sleep deprivation treatment. However, if the patient’s evaluation proves the TTH, then EMG biofeedback, relaxing training, and specific analgesics could be prescribed as a treatment option.
Providing the general guidelines is impossible in this case, as first of all, it is vital to understand the nature of the disorder. Currently, the action route includes the following steps:
a)Performing the tests to understand the psychological condition of the patient;
b)Choosing the appropriate treatment strategy taking into account the acquired diagnosis;
c) Evaluating the effectiveness of the treatment.
Sample Solution