Talk about the basic characteristics of depression.
Depression is a chronic disabling mental illness. The characteristics of depression determine that there may be some permanent cognitive changes in the course of chronic persistent diseases, such as memory loss, slow thinking, changes in attention and orientation. Actually, it's what you call brain function damage. For another example, slow thinking is like a person suddenly becoming stupid. In the past, thinking simple questions was slow, and even many things were incomprehensible.
Some netizens have asked me this question. Some people think that it may be caused by long-term use of antidepressants. This possibility does exist, because antidepressants may have an inhibitory effect on the central nervous system after all. But it is only a possibility, and the greater possibility is the change brought by depression itself. If I have stopped taking drugs, but some changes such as memory, attention, judgment and orientation have not improved, it may be that long-term depression has caused some cognitive impairment.
How can we try to change?
Although such changes are often irreversible, we can still try to do some professional rehabilitation training and take some professional cognitive drugs. For example, patients with Alzheimer's disease take donepezil, a cognitive drug certified by the US FDA.
There are also some brain activities that allow patients to do more things, such as playing mahjong. Patients who can play mahjong are not much worse.
In the eyes of many people, mental illness is basically incurable, but it is good to relieve symptoms. But in fact, if the method is correct and the patients and their families cooperate, they can not only recover completely, but also be better than before.