Trend: From anti-depressant “magic pills” towards targeted combination of medications and cognitive therapy

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Com­bi­na­tion of Cog­ni­tive Ther­a­py and Drugs Effec­tive­ly Treats Severe Non-Chron­ic Depres­sion (Uni­ver­si­ty Herald):

“Pre­vi­ous stud­ies showed that about two-thirds of the patients with major depres­sive dis­or­der will recu­per­ate on anti-depres­sant med­ica­tions; about one-third of the patients will expe­ri­ence full remis­sion, but half will then dete­ri­o­rate before ful­ly recov­er­ing. Cog­ni­tive ther­a­py is as effec­tive as med­ica­tion alone, but its effects tend to be long lasting…

“Our results indi­cate that com­bin­ing cog­ni­tive ther­a­py with anti­de­pres­sant med­i­cine can make a much big­ger dif­fer­ence than we had thought to about one-third of patients suf­fer­ing from major depres­sive dis­or­der,” said Steven Hol­lon, the Gertrude Conaway Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chol­o­gy and lead author of the study, said in a state­ment. “On the oth­er hand, it does not appear to pro­vide any addi­tion­al ben­e­fit for the oth­er two-thirds.”

Study: Effect of Cog­ni­tive Ther­a­py With Anti­de­pres­sant Med­ica­tions vs Anti­de­pres­sants Alone on the Rate of Recov­ery in Major Depres­sive Dis­or­der (JAMA Psy­chi­a­try). From the abstract:

• Impor­tance: Anti­de­pres­sant med­ica­tion (ADM) is effi­ca­cious in the treat­ment of depres­sion, but not all patients achieve remis­sion and few­er still achieve recov­ery with ADM alone.
• Objec­tive: To deter­mine the effects of com­bin­ing cog­ni­tive ther­a­py (CT) with ADM vs ADM alone on remis­sion and recov­ery in major depres­sive dis­or­der (MDD).
• Con­clu­sions and Rel­e­vance: Cog­ni­tive ther­a­py com­bined with ADM treat­ment enhances the rates of recov­ery from MDD rel­a­tive to ADMs alone, with the effect lim­it­ed to patients with severe, nonchron­ic depression.

Learn more:

• Info­graphic on the Dig­i­tal Brain Health Mar­ket 2012–2020
• 2014 Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit (Octo­ber 28–30th, 2014)