Abstract
This paper explores the pharmacological effects of anti-depressants in their treatment of depressive and related disorders, including ADHD, OCD, anti-social disorders, eating/sleeping disorders, and clinical depression. The constructivism of this work is in its substantial literature review, discussion section, and nursing implication sections where the author reveals both effectiveness and side effects of psychic drugs to cure depression. Nurse practical advice is given for those who work in clinics to reduce side effects and prevent worsening of the situation with patients.
Depression and related disorders have been treated by many generations of medications that are reported to have more or fewer effects on treatment. Specifically, they are all related to activating neural centers in the human brain and helping to transport serotonin and dopamine chemical structures between different brain centers. For this task, it is good to apply anti-depressants as stimulators of the brain activity in relation to their use irrespective of some side effects that may be significant for the brain structures.
Chemically, anti-depressants may differ by the structure of the compound in their atomic nature. For example, there are tricyclic anti-depressants with three atoms in the structure and there are tetracyclic compounds with the four-based compound structure. By effectiveness, selective and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors can be used apart from the major side effects, when regulated by other medications, and in the careful use with other psychic drugs. Noradrenergic and monoamine oxidase inhibitors belong to the new generation of psychic drugs that are used in depressive disorders treatment.
The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of medications of the anti-depressant type and discuss the benefits and side effects of each type of drugs. The Nursing Implication part will highlight consequences, which a nurse should take into account when treating a patient experiencing ADHD, OCD, clinical depression, eating/sleeping disorders, chronic pain, anxiety disorder, antisocial disorder, etc. In this relation, it would be useful to compare and contrast different types of medications in relevance to the nursing implications when they are all related to both benefits and side effects. Nurses should take into account all complexities and hard situations when treating patients with depressive disorders and, by the way, they should be all enlisted in the highly accessible database of clinical reviews and trials like this have been made in some attempts in the Cochrane Library by a number of research experts.
Discussion
Tricyclic Antidepressant Amitriptyline
Tricyclic antidepressant amitriptyline has been tested experimentally and clinically since the 1950s. This medication has shown positive results in the treatment of clinical depressive disorders, ADHD, suicide attempts, schizophrenic disorders, and eating disorders. This medication belongs to tricyclic compounds due to its specific chemical structure as its compounds have been united into triplets.
The superiority to the placebo effect of amitriptyline has been observed by researchers of the Cochrane Collaboration that have recently performed a background systematic review of substantial clinical trials of the tricyclic antidepressants. The effectiveness of this publication can be assessed by the amount of clinical trials data that go well along with the side effects of tricyclic antidepressants. The researchers have pointed out that their side effects are significant, as well as their impact on the organism. For instance, it has been revealed that amitriptyline may cause heart failure, hypertension, sexual dysfunction, vomiting, etc., specifically if the overdose has been applied to a patient. Overdose may even cause a lethal effect.
Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors
The medical use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors is the following: the chemical formula allows reactivating specific dopamine transporters in the organism. In this way, serotonin is easier transported in a patient and helps in the treatment of clinical depression, obsessive-compulsive disorders, eating and sleeping disorders, etc. The medication has been activated when it is bound up with postsynaptic receptors with the available level of serotonin within the synaptic cleft. However, the efficacy of the SSRIs in the clinical depression treatment may be doubtful for during some researches practitioners provide examples when this type of medication appears to be ineffective. On the contrary, Fournier et al. (2010) have provided a meta-analysis and clinical review research that has helped to generate major objectives of the depression treatment in cases of interest when there are observed outside sources reviewed along with practical results of the clinical medication treatment. The discussion of applying the SSRIs as dopamine transporting catalyzers has been on the rise nowadays due to the appearance of the next generation of antidepressants that are designed to get relief for the patients with a low dose of serotonin in the blood.
Serotonin-norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors (SNRIs)
Serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) are medications that are relevantly used to treat OCD, depression, attention deficit disorders, chronic pain, and other mood disorders, including ADHD and menopausal syndromes that belong to the group of dopamine and serotonin transmissions disorders. This type of medication belongs to potentially active and useful inhibitors of serotonin and norepinephrine reactions. They catalyze and stimulate other related medications, which is why they should be used carefully in correlation with other ways to treat depressi