71 Mood Disorders
Athletes, unlike nonathletes, do not show major changes in thier mood. Instead they are show signs in their preformance, such as decreased energy, poor performance, and dissatifaction with in their performance. It is very important for the sports medicial team to watch for these signs so they can better help and understand the athlete and, if necessary, call a sports psychologist to do further testing. According to the National Institute Of Mental Health, approximately 20.9 million American adults, or about 9.5 percent of the U.S. population age 18 and older in a given year, have a mood disorder ((NIMH). The median age of onset for mood disorders is 30 years There are three common mood disorders that are affect an athletes, which include, depression, dysthymia and bipolar disorders.
- Depression is characterized by feelings of sadness and loss of interest in the activities that a person normally enjoys. Additional symptoms include feelings of worthlessness, difficulty concentrating, and weight loss.
- An example of this is shown in the New York Mets pitcher, Pete Harnisch. According to Kamm 2008, Harnisch was coming off of a shoulder injury and was expected to be the ace pitcher for the Mets. He stopped chewing tobacco and found himself losing weight, fatigued, and unable to sleep. Harnisch approached his manager saying he did not feel he could pitch opening day. The manager then ridiculed him in front of the team which caused a riff in the relationship between them. Harnisch approached another staff, to which he was given Benadryl, for his insomnia and misdiagnosed with Lyme disease, an inflammatory disease spread through a tick bite, before the proper diagnosis of depression was finally made. Once diagnosed, Harnisch was prescribed Paxil, underwent psychotherapy and made an excellent recovery. His pitching was just as good on Paxil as off. If a sports medical team had interviewed Harnisch they would have found that Harnisch had feelings of sadness and guilt as well as a lack of joy. Harnisch also had a history of depression in his family. A sports medical team can find and diagnose depression by observing the athlete for being down or sad, loss of appetite, concentration disturbances, irritability, lack of energy, lack of pleasure from things, and guilt. Also asking questions seeing if there is a history of depression in the family can be beneficial.
- Although, depression is common in athletes, there arent many studies the show who, females or males, more more prone to the disorder. However, in a general population, woman are more likely then men to experience depression.(Mule, 2004).
- Another issue that has drawn a lot of negative attention in the sport’s world recently is that of concussions in pro football and the issues being had by the NFL. Over the past decade, the prevalence of concussions in football players has increased drastically, and it seems that older players with histories of concussions are seeing more and m