10 Tips: When to Go to the Emergency Room for Depression
Most people associate emergency rooms with life or limb-threatening conditions such as severe injuries and fractures as well as serious conditions and illnesses such as heart attacks and strokes. What most people don’t know is that emergency are actually a great place to take someone for serious conditions of mental health such as depression. In most cases, depression is usually handled and treated in outpatient facilities, and that is why maybe most people don’t associate it with emergency rooms. However, there are severe cases of depression that are severe, so much so that they require an immediate visit to an emergency room. Severe cases of depression can just be as life or limb-threatening as accidents and strokes and should always be taken seriously. It is therefore important to know which situations require one to go to an emergency room for depression so that one can take the urgent action that is required. This article will look to help with that as it will look to highlight 10 tips on when one should go to the emergency room for depression.
One of the very first tips we have for you as far as when one should go to the emergency room for depression is if they are having suicidal thoughts or thoughts of hurting themselves, or are actively suicidal or hurting themselves due to their depression. In such cases one should be taken to the emergency room as soon as possible to prevent them from actually following through on such thoughts.
Apart from doing harm to themselves, if one is having thoughts of hurting others or homicidal thoughts due to their depression, then they should also be taken to the emergency room as soon as possible. The subject matter experts over at FrontlineER.com are adamant that if one is so depressed that they are thinking of hurting others or even is actively doing so, then they should be taken to the emergency room as soon as possible.
The next tip that we have for you that should help you know when to go to the emergency room for depression concerns cases of injuries due to depression. One may already have injured themselves seriously and as such need immediate emergency attention. This may be to say stem bleeding or any other reason, but if someone who is depressed has already done themselves serious body damage, then taking them to the emergency is both practical and necessary as it will not only help prevent them from hurting themselves again as mentioned above but it will also allow for their injuries to be attended to.
If someone who is has been diagnosed with depression is showing signs of or experiencing severe physical manifestations of their mental health problem, ones that could threaten to cause them harm to their bodily well-being and function, then they should be taken to an emergency room as soon as possible as per the subject matter experts over at FrontlineER.com. This includes cases of dizzy spells, fainting among others.
Another tip as far as when one should go to the emergency room for depression is if one is showing signs of psychosis. This is usually when one is exhibiting thoughts, emotions and behavior that are detached from the external reality. Such folks are likely to do themselves or others harm and as such should be taken to an emergency room as soon as possible.
The next tip we have for you, one that is backed up by the subject matter experts over at FrontlineER.com, is that if someone has been diagnosed with depression and they are having serious issues with their medications, then they should also be taken to an emergency room as soon as possible, especially given what we know about some of the dangers with medications such as those due to drug interactions.
If someone who has been diagnosed with depression is showing signs of impaired thinking or even impaired judgement, then the next step should be to take them to an emergency room as soon as possible to be attended to, especially keeping in mind that such people are likely to harm themselves or others either knowingly or unknowingly.
Another instance when one should be taken to emergency room for depression is if they are showing signs of disorganized speech or having general speech problems. As is revealed in comprehensive discussions on this topic over at FrontlineER.com, sometimes such problems may not necessarily be related to the depression but could be a sign of a serious medical problem rather than the mental one.
If someone who has been diagnosed with depression starts to exhibit signs of severe paranoia and fear, then they should also be taken to an emergency room as soon as possible before the situation escalates any further and someone gets physically injured.
Finally, as our last tip, if you want someone admitted to a mental health facility, maybe you feel their depression has worsened and warrants it, then taking them to an emergency room is actually the quickest way to having the admitted. This is because at the emergency room, they will be given the medical screening exam that will help them gain admittance to a mental health facility where they can be able to receive the treatment they need.
It is our hope that the above tips, with more on this and other related topics to be found over at FrontlineER.com, will come in handy when looking to decide when to go to the emergency room for depression.
