Depressed Jane

Pain, the most common reason for adults to visit a primary care physician, and depression, the most frequent mental complaint requiring a doctor’s appointment, occur together as often as half the time.

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A recent study finds that the antidepressant effects of drugs like Prozac involve both neurogenesis-dependent and -independent mechanisms, a finding that may lead to development of better treatments for depression and anxiety.

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In Japan reports of violence linked to SSRI antidepressants have raised public awareness to the danger these drugs can pose. A Japanese psychiatrist acknowledges: “To say that being able to tell the difference between depressives and mild manic-depressives is the test of a psychiatrist’s true skill is no exaggeration.” The absence of any empirically valid diagnostic tool in psychiatry puts patients at risk of trial and error –i.e.

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For patients who experience pain and depression, common co-existing conditions, an intervention that included individually tailored antidepressant therapy and a pain self-management program resulted in greater improvement in the symptoms of these conditions than patients who received usual care, according to a study in the May 27 issue of JAMA.

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Although teen depression poses a widespread problem for which proven treatments exist, few depressed teens receive any care. Why don’t they undergo treatment? The answer depends whether you ask parents or the adolescents themselves, according to a study in the June issue of the journal Medical Care. “With teenagers, treatment decisions greatly involve other parties, especially parents. For instance, teenagers often rely on adults for transportation.

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Results presented today at the 162nd American Psychiatric Association (APA) congress in San Francisco, CA, demonstrated the efficacy and tolerability of SEROQUEL® (quetiapine fumarate) for treating depressive episodes in bipolar disorder, including the difficult-to-treat bipolar II patient population.1,2 The data are from combined analyses of four large-scale clinical trials to examine SEROQUEL as a treatment for depressive episodes associated with bipolar I and II disorders.

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Recent studies have linked sleep loss and sleep disorders to health problems such as depression, obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and stroke. The latest findings in sleep research will be presented and discussed by more than 6,500 scientists and sleep specialists when the SLEEP 2009 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies convenes at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle, Wash. from June 8 to 11.

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Ridge Diagnostics, Inc., a neurodiagnostic company, announced that data from clinical studies for its first-in-class, proprietary blood test for Major Depressive Disorder(MDD), will be presented during a poster session entitled Multianalyte Biomarker Blood Test to Aid in Diagnosis, Treatment and Management of Major Depressive Disorder, at the American Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting, May 20, 2009.

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Rexahn Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE Amex: RNN), announced that it has enrolled 50% of the total projected enrollment required for its Phase IIa trial to evaluate the safety and preliminary efficacy of Serdaxin™ as a central nervous system based treatment for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). The complete trial calls for the enrollment of up to 80 patients at multiple clinical trial sites in the United States.

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According to the latest data in a clinical study supported by St. Jude Medical, Inc. (NYSE:STJ), deep brain stimulation (DBS) therapy for depression may provide sustainable improvement in depression symptoms among patients with major depressive disorder. Study results will be presented at the American Psychiatric Association (APA) meeting in San Francisco.

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