Alcohol is the drug of choice for adolescents, with cigarettes and marijuana being second and third. Contrary to widespread belief, alcohol dependence is most common in 18- to 20-year-olds, with progressively decreasing rates of alcohol dependence in older age groups.
Depressive disorders and symptoms are common in cancer patients (up to 58% have depressive symptoms and up to 38% have major depression), worsen over the course of cancer treatment, persist long after cancer therapy, recur with the recurrence of cancer, and significantly impact quality of life.
It was just over a generation ago that the routine combination of psychotherapy and drug therapy seemed impossible. Then, one meta-analysis found that combined treatment with psychotherapy and medication was found to be notably superior to either treatment alone.
Depression has long been recognized as a primary concern for health care providers. Many approaches to treating depression have been developed, ranging from medications, to long-term psychotherapy, to shorter, more structured cognitive-behavioral treatments--all of which help some of the patients, some of the time, to some extent.
Despite advances in our understanding of depression therapy, many patients with depression remain unresponsive to treatment. As many as 50% of patients who begin treatment with an antidepressant do not respond.
In a study published in the April issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers sought to determine whether young women who were hospitalized with acute MI also had higher rates of depression than other groups.
Is apathy in patients with Parkinson disease (PD) merely a symptom of depression or a core symptom of PD itself?
A young mother has just learned from her gynecologist that she is 2 months pregnant. She has had 7 major depressive episodes over the past 8 years, 3 of which were accompanied by serious suicide attempts. She is asking you if she should stop taking the antidepressant at this time. What do you advise?
A discussion of the pharmacologic management of bipolar depression, including emerging treatments and expert recommendations.
With an application to certify its use in depression before the FDA, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has become a hot topic in the expanding field of device-based treatment modalities.
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) may hold promise for patients with treatment-resistant and severe major depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, it may not be the best choice for patients with Parkinson (PD) disease who display certain compulsive behaviors, reported researchers from the Cleveland Clinic and from Brown Medical School (Providence, Rhode Island) at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurological Surgeons, which took place April 22-27 in San Francisco.
The common sense notion that a child will benefit from an improvement in her mother’s depression has been confirmed in a prospective evaluation.
Antidepressants may have a protective effect on the hippocampal atrophy seen in patients with severe, untreated depression. This atrophy may be caused by an overabundance of glucocorticoids.
How effective is psychotherapy for the treatment of depression in children and adolescents?
Half of patients with nonpsychotic major depressive disorder can achieve symptomatic remission with no more than two treatments.
Because complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is commonly misunderstood by both physicians and patients, patients may be misdiagnosed and may not receive appropriate treatment.
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, SSRIs, Suicidality, Depression, Major depressive disorder, Neonatal abstinence syndrome
Well into the 1970s, we psychiatrists believed that depression came from anger turned inward-and we acted on this notion. Psychiatrists spent countless hours trying to get depressed patients to talk about their anger. Enterprising psychologists and psychiatrists devised schemes to make such patients angry.
Research Review: Treating Major Depressive Disorder With MAOIs: Effect of Delivery System on Cardiovascular Events
Insights Into Depression & Anxiety: Living With an Ambiguity in Clinical Practice: Antidepressant Drug-Drug Interactions
Insights Into Depression and Anxiety: Overview of the Anxiety Disorders
Funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the STAR*D project is one of the largest depression treatment studies ever conducted, with more than 4,000 participants. Results from the second phase of the study will be published over the next year. In this issue PT readers will find a preliminary review of data drawn from the first 1,500 enrollees.
How did the author of the controversial book Listening to Prozac become a psychiatrist instead of a writer as he had planned, and how did he manage to fulfill both career goals?
The multitalented psychiatrist talks with Psychiatric Times about his research, his literary work and the future of psychiatry itself.
Insights Into Depression and Anxiety:What Roles Do Anxiety Disorders Play in the Treatment of Depression?
