Health News
New Study Offers Strategy for Treating Depression
March 23, 2006
Depression affects nearly 15 million Americans and more than 189 million prescriptions for antidepressants are written each year.
A new government study reveals that those patients whose depression is not in remission through their first course of drugs should be persistent. The study suggests that adding a second drug or switching to a different drug can often yield treatment results.
As reported in SF Gate, about half of the nearly 1,500 patients in the study achieved remission -- virtually the complete absence of symptoms -- by completing two treatment steps, and many others showed improvement.
The results of this study might provide a "road map" for how depression patients should be treated. Depression patients often give up if they do not see immediate results or suffer side effects. This study suggests that that trying different drugs is the most likely path to remission.
Although this study has offered some insight into depression treatments, many patients who suffer from depression do not go see positive results.