Depression in older people is commonly under diagnosed and is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. Because older people currently occupy 65% of acute hospital beds, it is crucial for them to be properly assessed for depression to optimise their medical care. The aim of this study was to identify potential risk factors for depression in the medically ill in order to improve their inpatient care. Login using your SSSFT NHS OpenAthens for full text. SSOTP - request a copy of the article from the library - www.sssft.nhs.uk/library
Follow-up data from the CoBalT trial poses an interesting clinical question (Wiles et al, 2016). If an individual has apparently treatment-resistant depression and antidepressant ‘usual care’ appears the only option available, is there any possible benefit to providing a moderate length course of CBT alongside the medication, and if so, what are the benefits and how long do they last for? Could benefits be detected not just months, but years after the end of therapy?
Understanding who responds well to treatment for depression is important both scientifically (to help develop better treatments) and clinically (to more efficiently prescribe effective treatments to individuals). Many attempts to predict treatment outcomes have focused on mechanistic pathways (e.g., genetic and brain imaging measures). However, these may not be particularly useful clinically, where such measures are typically not available to clinicians making treatment decisions. A better alternative might be to use routinely- or readily-collected behavioural and self-report data, such as demographic variables and symptom scores.
Chekroud and colleagues (2015) report the results of a machine learning approach to predicting treatment outcome in depression, using clinical (rather than mechanistic) predictors.
Women have twice the risk of developing major depression compared to men. This difference is most noticeable during the reproductive period years (Soares et al, 2008) (e.g. premenstrual, during pregnancy and postpartum, and perimenopause) when women are subject to large fluctuations of ovarian hormones.
Additionally, oestrogens are believed to utilise neuroprotective and antidepressive actions within the the brain (Arevalo et al, 2015), and transitioning to the postmenopausal period is associated with a large drop in oestrogen production (Burger al al., 2007).
Therefore, the authors, Georgakis et al (2016), are using ‘age at menopause’ and ‘duration of reproductive age’ as two markers of lifelong oestrogen exposure to measure the association with risk of depression in postmenopausal women.
Combining antidepressants (ADs) for therapy of acute depression is frequently employed, but randomized studies have yielded conflicting results. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis aimed at determining efficacy and tolerability of combination therapy. Login using your SSSFT NHS OpenAthens for full text. SSOTP - request a copy of the article from the library - www.sssft.nhs.uk/library
Cognitive therapies could be an effective alternative to medication in the treatment of depression, according to NIHR research featured in a new Highlight from the NIHR Dissemination Centre.
The Highlight brings together four studies funded by the NIHR that shed light on when, how and for whom, cognitive therapies might be effective. These are accompanied by blogs and interviews with charities, clinicians, researchers and patients.
Antidepressant treatment failure is a common problem worldwide. In this study, we assess whether or not an important aspect of depression, cognitive impairment, is untreated by antidepressants by studying the effect of acute antidepressant treatment on a range of cognitive domains. Please contact the library to receive a copy of this article - http://bit.ly/1Xyazai
Cognitive–behavioural therapy (CBT) is effective for treating anxiety disorders and is offered in most mental health services around the world. However, a relatively large number of patients with anxiety disorders do not benefit from CBT, experience relapses or drop out. Reliable predictors of treatment effects are lacking. The aim of this study is to investigate the predictive value of emotion regulation and attentional control for CBT outcome in a routine setting. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details
To examine reciprocal relations of loneliness and cognitive function in older adults. Login using your SSSFT NHS OpenAthens for full text. SSOTP - request a copy of the article from the library - http://bit.ly/1Xyazai
Amygdala is considered as the core pathogenesis of generalized social anxiety disorder (GSAD). However, it is still unclear whether effective group cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) could modulate the function of amygdala-related network. We aimed to examine the resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) of the amygdala before and after group CBT.
depression is common in people with poor physical health, particularly within the acute medical in-patient setting. Co-morbid depression contributes to poor outcomes, and screening for depression in acute medical in-patients has been advocated. The Edinburgh Depression Scale (EDS) has been validated in a variety of general hospital patient groups, but not previously in older acute medical in-patients. Login using your SSSFT NHS OpenAthens for full text. SSOTP - You can request a copy of this article by replying to this email. Please ensure you are clear which article you are requesting.
Perinatal suicide is a rare but tragic complication of pregnancy and childbirth with significant public health implications.1 Among women with psychiatric illness, prior research suggests that suicide risk may be increased as much as 70-fold if compared with the general population.2 Beyond this, little is known about risk factors for completed suicide among perinatal women and there is a lack of population-based research on this topic. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details
The exponential proliferation of social media sites has caused wide scale social changes over the last decade or so. The combined result of Web 2.0 coding, smart phone availability and rapid widely available mobile data networks means that we can now all participate in online social communication whenever and wherever we are.
Undoubtedly this has its advantages (or so we think, given that one in seven humans has a Facebook account) in terms of keeping in touch, self-publicising our achievements (or photos of our breakfasts) and networking with others. It also however comes with a darker side; perhaps soaking up time from more meaningful face-to-face interactions, exposing us to cyber-bullying or forcing upon us an endless stream of the selective, sanitized and overstated highlights of our “friends’” lives. (Cf Wait But Why’s excellent blog about Why Generation Y yuppies are so unhappy).
Several studies have been set up trying to answer the question of net benefit versus net cost to our mental health of these new media platforms, and so far mixed results have emerged. Adding perhaps a little more weight to this debate is the recent publication of a large survey in Depression and Anxiety by Liu yi Lin and colleagues from Pittsburgh, entitled: Association between Social Media Use and Depression Among U.S. Young Adults (Lin, 2016).
Previous neuroimaging studies indicate abnormalities in cortico-limbic circuitry in mood disorder. Here we employ prospective longitudinal voxel-based morphometry to examine the trajectory of these abnormalities during early stages of illness development. You can request a copy of this article by replying to this email. Please ensure you are clear which article you are requesting.
Adolescence is a period of increased risk for the development of depression. Epidemiological and clinical studies suggest that the phenomenology of depression may differ during childhood and adolescence. However, participants in these studies may not reflect depressed young people referred to routine clinical services. The aim of this paper was to describe referrals for depression to a UK routine public healthcare service for children and adolescents with mental health difficulties. Login using your SSSFT NHS OpenAthens for full text. SSOTP - You can request a copy of this article by replying to this email. Please ensure you are clear which article you are requesting.