The Importance of Day Care in the Black Community in the United Kingdom

Social Centres are important to older people. Social Centres are essential for minority older people.
We need to care.

Original post by Health and Fitness: Depression Articles from EzineArticles.com and software by Elliott Back

How to Cope When Your Spouse is Depressed

Living with a depressed spouse can be extremely stressful for the partner and other family members. Communication is impacted, the couple’s social life suffers, and feelings of satisfaction with the marriage decrease. Here are fifteen ways to cope and keep your sanity when your spouse is depressed.

Original post by Health and Fitness: Depression Articles from EzineArticles.com and software by Elliott Back

Handling Depression

Depression may often be initiated by high levels of long term stress, by failure associated with stress - related under - performance, or by life crises.

Original post by Health and Fitness: Depression Articles from EzineArticles.com and software by Elliott Back

Overcome Winter Depression with These Tips

As one travels further North and South of the equator the equation of day and night changes to the extent that right up north the actual daylight hours are very few. Lack of sunlight can lead to depression and in North America it is estimated that up to 50-60 percent people suffer symptoms of this malaise-

Original post by Health and Fitness: Depression Articles from EzineArticles.com and software by Elliott Back

Beat the Fall and Winter Blues With Exercise!

I will be discussing five strategies to help deal with depression during the fall and winter utilizing exercise. The five key points are staying consistent, cardiovascular training, setting goals, strength training, and partner training.

Original post by Health and Fitness: Depression Articles from EzineArticles.com and software by Elliott Back

Managing and Conquering Depression

We all have fell victim to depression at one point or another. That is part of life. Some people will fall into a depression for a few hours, others may be in that state for days and eventually manage and conquer that depression to finally come back to a state of balance, a state of equilibrium.

Original post by Health and Fitness: Depression Articles from EzineArticles.com and software by Elliott Back

Secrets of Thai Massage is Total Relaxation

Depression is a major problem in today’s life. Thai massage just like Ayurvedic massage technique integrates certain Eastern spiritual techniques into traditional massage. Thai massage gives total relaxation and that is beneficial for your mental health also.

Original post by Health and Fitness: Depression Articles from EzineArticles.com and software by Elliott Back

Clinical Depression - A Quick Guide

Clinical depression is a rather serious medical condition that can affect anybody. It can affect not only a person’s mood and thoughts, but also the person’s physical being. In other words it can affect the total person.

Original post by Health and Fitness: Depression Articles from EzineArticles.com and software by Elliott Back

Use Rose Essential Oil for Depression and Fatigue

A popular essential oil may hold the key to balancing your emotions, reducing fatigue and lifting your mood. One or two drops may be all you need to help you feel calmer and more relaxed.

Original post by Health and Fitness: Depression Articles from EzineArticles.com and software by Elliott Back

Do Antidepressants Cause Worsening of Bipolar Disorder? Two Direct Looks For Switching

Antidepressants are known to cause switching from depression to mania in some people with bipolar disorder; the only remaining question is how often this happens. A very important study recently studied the switch rates on venlafaxine (Effexor in the U.S.) versus bupropion (formerly Wellbutrin). By some interpretations (including mine) this study shows that bupropion does indeed have a much lower rate than venlafaxine (Post and Leverich and colleagues). Because there was no control group in this study, we don't know how close bupropion might have been to some "natural" switch rate, which is very likely not zero even in a 10-week study like this one. (We're lucky to have even these data, and should be grateful to Drs. Post and Leverich and their colleagues in the Stanley Bipolar Network that conducted this research; there was no control group because in this study, people in regular treatment agreed to be randomized, when they were going to be given an antidepressant, to one of three (sertaline/Zoloft was the other one).

Since then another study has been published on this subject. This is not a randomized trial either. A team of researchers looked at patients in ongoing treatment for bipolar disorder who were using a slick program called ChronoRecord, which keeps a mood chart automatically; all the patient has to do is enter a number or two every day (chronorecord.org). They compared the experience of patients on antidepressants to those not on antidepressants. The main point of their paper, by my reading, is that they did not see any more switching amongst those on antidepressants than those not so treated (nearly everybody was on a mood stabilizer) (Bauer and Rasgon and colleagues).

However, as the authors point out, they too did not have a control group and indeed, those patients who are on antidepressants could easily be different than those who are not -- more depressed, for example. That is the other thing which stands out in this paper, as the authors also point out: the patients on the antidepressants are more depressed than those who are not. Odd, isn't it. But on this basis, it seems to me at least that we have to decide: either we're going to accept the design of this study and conclude that antidepressants don't work, and may even make patients more depressed; or we can say that there was so much potential for some sort of selection operating in this study that the patients who got the antidepressants were just so different from those who were not on them, that we can't conclude anything from these data.

I have not corresponded with Dr. Bauer, whose work I greatly respect but who doesn't know me well, and whom I don't want to bother with my little objection. But it did bother me that one conclusion could be presented as though it means perhaps a little something, while this other conclusion about antidepressants associated with greater depression was mentioned but not focused upon. Overall, if either worth noting, this latter one seems to me to be the more powerful finding, or at least both together, but not just the "no increased cycling on antidepressants" finding.

And so with two more studies of the issue, unfortunately nothing is much clearer as regards antidepressant safety in bipolar disorder -- other than to strongly suggest that bupropion is better, if an antidepressant is going to be used, than venlafaxine. That is probably important, as a preliminary conclusion while we await more data (although frankly, this is likely to hammer venlafaxine so hard it would take years to recover even if the next study showed a more neutral finding).

Dr. Phelps
(I've been working on a big article on the Bipolar Spectrum concept so haven't been posting much lately, but will get back to it here soon I hope.)

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