Category: Depression

People are diagnosed with SAD if they experience these changes during two consecutive winters.

Seasonally affective disorder (SAD), which usually strikes during the dark winter months, is thought to affect around one-in-ten people.

Many of the following symptoms normally start between September and November and can continue until the following April:

1. Anxiety
2. Lethargy
3. Irritability
4. Tearfulness
5. Reduced libido
6. Low self-esteem
7. Withdrawing from social situations
8. Sleep problems
9. Food cravings

People are diagnosed with SAD if they experience these changes over two consecutive winters.

SAD is more than just getting the blues, it is a form of major depression.

Dr Stephen Lurie, author of a review on SAD, said:

“Like major depression, Seasonal Affective Disorder probably is under-diagnosed in primary care offices.

But with personalized and detailed attention to symptoms, most patients can be helped a great deal.”

Light therapy is a popular way to treat SAD.

Light therapy can be useful for an instant boost, however, one study has found that cognitive-behavioural therapy is more effective in the long-run.

In therapy, people learned to avoid social isolation, which can depress mood.

Therapy also attempts to challenge the idea that the dark winter months are inevitably depressing.

The study found that while people were keen on the light therapy at the start, by the second winter only 30% were still using the equipment.

CBT, though, gave people the skills they needed to cope.

Sometimes SAD can get confused with other mental health problems, said Dr Lurie:

“The important message here is that if you are a patient who has been diagnosed with a mental illness of any kind, don’t just assume that any new mental or emotional problem is due to that illness.

Specifically, if you have ADHD and you feel worse in the winter, don’t just assume it’s your ADHD getting worse.

It could actually be SAD — and you should see your doctor because ADHD and SAD are treated entirely differently.”

The study was published in the journal American Family Physician (Lurie et al., 2007).

One type does not respond to SSRI antidepressants.

Three sub-types of depression have been identified for the first time, new research reveals.

One type does not respond to SSRI antidepressants, the most common treatment for depression.

The type that does not respond to antidepressants exists in people with experience of childhood trauma, along with certain patterns of brain activity.

SSRIs are thought to work by boosting levels of serotonin in the brain, but they do not work on some people.

Professor Kenji Doya, study co-author, said:

“It has always been speculated that different types of depression exist, and they influence the effectiveness of the drug.

But there has been no consensus.”

For the study, 134 people had blood tests, completed a series of questionnaires and had brain scans.

The results revealed three different sub-types, Professor Doya said:

“This is the first study to identify depression sub-types from life history and MRI data.”

Two of the sub-types were linked to successfully responding to antidepressants.

People with these two type of depression had not suffered childhood trauma and did not have unusually high levels of connectivity between different areas of the brain.

The third type, that does not respond to antidepressants, is linked to unusual activity in the angular gyrus, a brain structure critical for processing language, attention and other areas of cognition.

It is hoped that understanding depression sub-types will aid its treatment.

Dr. Tomoki Tokuda, the study’s lead author, said:

“The major challenge in this study was to develop a statistical tool that could extract relevant information for clustering similar subjects together.”

The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports (Tokuda et al., 2018).

It helps change negative thought patterns and enables people with depression to see the world more realistically.

Changing how you think is the best way to overcome depression, research finds.

Cognitive techniques can help to change negative thought patterns and enable people with depression to see the world more realistically.

Dr Daniel Strunk, the study’s first author, said:

“…our results suggest that it was the cognitive strategies that actually helped patients improve the most during the first critical weeks of cognitive-behavioral therapy.”

The study involved 60 patients diagnosed with major depression who were treated by cognitive therapists.

The results showed that an initial focus on cognitive techniques was linked to greater improvements in depression than using behavioural techniques.

Typical cognitive techniques include questioning negative thoughts and running thought experiments.

Behavioural techniques include things like making a plan of action to do things that you enjoy.

The study also found that people who collaborated better with their therapist and committed to therapy did better.

Dr Strunk said:

“If you’re a patient and willing to fully commit to the therapy process, our data suggest you will see more benefit.”

The study is part of a project to understand how cognitive therapy works, Dr Strunk said:

“We’re trying to understand if cognitive therapy leads people to a profound change in their basic self view, or if it teaches them a set of skills that they have to continually practice over time.”

Cognitive-behavioural therapy targets both thoughts and behaviours, but it may be the cognitive aspect that is most useful at first.

Dr Strunk said:

“In our sample of cognitive therapy patients, cognitive techniques appeared to promote a lessening of depression symptoms in a way that was not true of behavioral techniques.”

The study was published in the journal Behaviour Research and Therapy (Strunk et al., 2010).