Depressed Jane

Spending on prescription drugs to treat depression, anxiety, pain, schizophrenia and other conditions climbed from $7.9 billion in 1997 to $20 billion in 2004 – over a 150 percent increase, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.– The sharpest increase was for antipsychotic agents, medications used to manage schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other psychoses. They saw an increase from $1.3 billion to $4. [click link for full article]

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For depressed people with bipolar disorder who are taking a mood stabilizer, adding an antidepressant medication is no more effective than a placebo (sugar pill), according to results published online on March 28, 2007 in the New England Journal of Medicine. The results are part of the large-scale, multi-site Systematic Treatment Enhancement Program for Bipolar Disorder (STEP-BD), a $26. [click link for full article]

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Maintaining healthy habits such as exercising regularly and avoiding too much alcohol not only help you look good, but such habits might also stave off depression. A study of more than 1,100 adults found that those who reported excessive alcohol use (an average of three or more drinks daily) at the beginning of the study were more likely to suffer from depression six years later, as were those who were overweight at the beginning of the study. [click link for full article]

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When people receive brief telephone-based psychotherapy soon after starting on antidepressant medication, strong positive effects may continue 18 months after their first session. So concludes a Group Health study in the April Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.This paper describes one more year of follow-up since a 2004 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) report on the same random sample of Group Health patients. [click link for full article]

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Researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) have announced the results of a two-year study, which tested the long-term antidepressant response to VNS (Vagus Nerve Stimulation) TherapyTM in patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD). The study, of which Mark S. George, M.D. [click link for full article]

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Recovering from a heart attack is tough enough without facing depression. Yet that’s exactly what happens to nearly half of heart attack survivors. Depression after a heart attack isn’t a one-size-fits-all classification. Different variations have different effects on the heart and recovery, reports the April 2007 issue of the Harvard Heart Letter. [click link for full article]

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Researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) have announced the results of a two-year study, which tested the long-term antidepressant response to VNS (Vagus Nerve Stimulation) Therapy(TM) in patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD). The study, of which Mark S. George, M.D. [click link for full article]

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Recovering from a heart attack is tough enough without facing depression. Yet that’s exactly what happens to nearly half of heart attack survivors. Depression after a heart attack isn’t a one-size-fits-all classification. Different variations have different effects on the heart and recovery, reports the April 2007 issue of the “Harvard Heart Letter. [click link for full article]

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Family caregivers of people with ALS, most often spouses, are likely to become depressed and feel burdened, but that’s not the case for the people they are caring for, according to a study published in the March 20, 2007, issue of Neurology®, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology. [click link for full article]

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The antidepressant duloxetine, at a once-daily dose of 60 mg, significantly reduced non-specific pain and emotional symptoms associated with depression in a new, eight-week, placebo-controlled study of 327 adult patients with at least moderate pain and major depression. The results were presented today at the 15th European Congress of Psychiatry (AEP) in Madrid, Spain. [click link for full article]

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