Robin Williams Research Paper

Everyone knows what depression is, or at least they think they do, but, no one really knows what depression is unless they have it or have battled with it. Depression is defined as a serious mood disorder that involves emotional, behavioral, cognitive, and physical changes severe enough to disrupt a person’s ordinary functioning. People with depression always believe something bad is going to happen, they go through life with the constant feeling of low grade happiness, they want to be happy but the depression literally will not let them. It’s not imaginary or “all in your head” and it’s more than just feeling “down”, it’s a real and serious illness caused by changes in hormone levels, medical conditions (say suffering from cancer or being
Protein deposits, called Lewy bodies, develop in nerve cells in the brain regions involved in thinking, memory and movement. Lewy body dementia causes a progressive decline in mental abilities. People with Lewy body dementia may experience visual hallucinations, and changes in alertness and attention. Which ultimatley could have caused him to become depressed. “The Marin County coroner said the official cause of death was suicide by hanging. Williams had no alcohol or drugs in his system and only normal levels of prescribed medications. Williams suffered from chronic depression and was diagnosed with Parkinsons disease in November 2013.” (WebMD article) Patients with Lewy body dementia are sometimes misdiagnosed with Parkinson's, which can lead to doctors to prescribe medications that make Lewy body dementia sypmtoms worse. Williams’ family believed that the Lewy body dementia caused his suicide but a resource said as that could be possible it would be unusual, because suicide does not usually occur in Lewy body dementia patients. We may never know the reason for Robin Williams’ death, but that shouldn’t matter, we should try to rememeber the good childhood and adulthood memories we all had of Robin