For those who face depression, every day of their lives may seem like a struggle. A struggle to get up, a struggle to face the day and the people involved and it can be a struggle to make the most of the day. It just seems simpler to crawl back into bed and forget about it all. But, the world needs us, we need the world too. So, we get up and deal with the depression. But, there may be a way or a place in which the depression you feel is similar to the depression that others feel and are dealing with as well.

The first thing to know about depression is that it is not just in your head. Depression is, in fact, a whole body disease that affects multiple systems.

In addition to feeling sad, hopeless, or helpless, a person may suffer from extreme fatigue, decreased motor (muscle) coordination, changes in appetite and weight, and a loss of interest in activities that are usually pleasurable–just to name a few of the more common symptoms.

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The National Library of Medicine (NLM) helps you find answers to all your health care questions. The NLM’s medical library collection has more than 8 million books, photographs, microfilms, journals and other items. It’s a resource for health care, biomedicine, and the humanities, technology and science as it they relate to biomedicine. NLM offers a website call MedlinePlus that is one service of the NLM to direct you to the information to help answer health questions. This website also has extensive information about drugs, an illustrated medical encyclopedia, interactive patient tutorials, and latest health news. NLM is located on the campus of the national institutes of health in Bethesda in Maryland and it’s the largest medical library in the world. There are the rarest medical works and the oldest medical history collections inside this library. The library offers a reading room for convenience or items can be requested through the interlibrary loan system. The National Library of Medicine once published a monthly guide to the articles in five thousand journals. The guide called Index Medicus was begun in 1879. The final issue was published in December 2004. The information is now offered at its website call PubMed.

In February 2003, the NLM launched a virtual customer service representative named Cosmo. Cosmo is a navigation tool used to guide customers to information on the NLM web site. Users can get help finding information on consumer health, drug facts, medical databases, grant information and the online catalog access. The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) is run by NLM. The NCBI houses the biological databases accessible through the internet’s Entrez search engine.

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