Helplessness

Hilfe,/. help, assistance relief remedy, hilf-los, a. helpless, -reich, a. helpful. 

A. Nameplate data. Give all nameplate data, regardless of how inconsequential it may seem the manufacturer is virtually helpless without it. 

Depression is one of the most common psychiatric disorders. It is characterized by feeling of intense sadness, helplessness, worthlessness, and impaired functioning. Those experiencing a major depressive episode exhibit physical and psychological symptoms, such as appetite disturbances, sleep disturbances, and loss of interest in job, family, and other activities usually enjoyed. A major depressive episode is a depressed or dysphoric (extreme or exaggerated sadness, anxiety, or unhappiness) mood that interferes with daily functioning and includes five or more of the symptoms listed in Display 31-1. 

Full therapeutic effect of the antidepressant may not be attained for 10 days to 4 weeks. Patients with suicidal tendencies must be monitored closely. Report any expressions of guilt, hopelessness helplessness insomnia, weight toss and direct or indirect threats of suicide. 

Helplessness. T cells are more readily tolerated than B cells and if they are unable to activate the B cells these cells could be described as helpless. ... 

Petty, F, Kramer, G, Wilson, L and Jordan, S (1994) In vivo serotonin release and learned helplessness. Psychiatry Res. 52 285-293. 

This behavioural syndrome, rather emotively called learned helplessness", is widely believed to share many features of depression, not least because both culminate in psychomotor retardation and both are linked with experience of uncontrollable, unpredictable stress. Whether or not learned helplessness really is an analogue of depression remains controversial (Maier 1993). Nevertheless, escape deficits in rats are prevented by pretreatment with antidepressants from different generic groups. Other psychotropic agents, such as CNS stimulants and neuroleptics, are generally ineffective. 

One problem with both these theories is that disruption of noradrenergic transmission by selective adrenoceptor antagonists has little impact on the development of escape deficits. However, such antagonists do prevent the reversal of learned helplessness by antidepressants (reviewed by Stanford 1995). Also, it would be most unlikely that a deficit in only one neurotransmitter system fully accounts for learned helplessness. Indeed, there is plenty of evidence for a role for 5-HT in learned helplessness for instance, this behaviour is reversed by microinjection of 5-HT into the prefrontal cortex (Davis et al. 1999). Finally, it is clear that opioid, GABAergic and cholinergic systems (among others) are all linked with this behavioural deficit and even dihydropyridine antagonists of Ca + channels prevent its development. 

In short, the widespread neurochemical disruption during learned helplessness suggests that antidepressant drugs could prevent this syndrome by targeting any of several different neurotransmitter systems. 

Obviously one limitation of all this work is that the drug effects have been tested in normal animals. So far, the neurochemical changes induced by long-term drug treatment have not been tested in combination with procedures such as learned helplessness, but it cannot be assumed that they will be the same as those in normal (non-depressed) subjects. 

Maier, SF (1993) Learned helplessness, relationships with fear and anxiety. In Stress from Synapse to Syndrome (Eds Stanford, SC and Salmon, P), Academic Press, London and New York, pp. 207-243. 

This disorder usually causes a marked lowering of self-esteem and self-confidence with increased thoughts of pessimism, hopelessness, and helplessness. In the extreme, the person may feel excessively and unreasonably guilty. 

Apparently, the Doctor did not know this and thought he was to be left alone again. This time the stretcher-bearers had left him in the lurch, with his stretcher and its paraphernalia still in the room. He was so worked up by the afternoon session that in his anger he forgot how helpless he was supposed to be. Bending down, he picked up the stretcher and the blankets and the pillow and stalked out carrying these things under his arms. 

Whether or not he had known Farben s drug Methylene Blue had been tested on helpless inmates of concentration camps, the fact remained that the experiments had proved unsuccessful and the German government was still appealing to its scientists for an effective means of combating typhus. 

I was thinking of the danger from the West. Here is the point where I made my mistake. But 1 experienced the invasion of Ludwigshafcn in 1923, and that illustrated how helpless a country can be without a military force. I experienced these things personally. I was in Ludwigshafen at that time, which is on the left bank of the Rhine. 

There are gradients of health status across income and education (referred to as socioecomic status or SES ) that are not explained by access to health care or other simple explanations [40]. Therefore, it may be of great relevance in the future to understand the role of such factors as sense of control, helplessness, persistent fear and anxiety, diet, exercise, and the impact of the living and social (e.g. family and work) environments in regulating the allostatic systems these factors could cause allostatic systems to operate inefficiently and lead to an acceleration of genetic predispositions towards disease. 

In PTSD, exposure to a traumatic event causes immediate intense fear, helplessness, or horror. 

Depue, R. A., Monroe, S. M. (1978). Learned helplessness in the perspective of the depressed disorders Conceptual and definitional issues. Journal of Abnormal Psychobgy, 87, 3-20. 

I m hoping our progress in Santa Fe will inspire others to not feel helpless, and to make changes in other communities. 

Last winter I had a severe reaction to some waste oil. When I went to see my doctor he said I had pneumonia. When antibiotics had no effect I felt helpless. The doctor tested me again and said I had mono, which is caused by Epstein-Barr virus. This past winter I went to England for a visit, came back and went down with pneumonia again. Commercial air travel is a challenge for me because of poor air quality and unavoidable exposures to fragrances. 

Onanism, melancholy, and gout, unfortunately, were but way-stations on the road to final catastrophe. The uric acid deposits in a person s tissues would gradually increase in quantity as the years passed and as his constitutional vigor waned, until at last, Haig predicted, "the long pent up store of urates breaks its dams and rushes into the circulation with an overwhelming flood." If not destroyed on the rocks of apoplexy, the helpless victim would be swept onward to heart failure, Bright s disease, or a like fate. (25)... 

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