According to the results of a landmark federal study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, depression can be beaten but it takes time. More than 15 million Americans suffer depression every year making it America's leading mental health problem. The government began a six year study to find an effective treatment for this mental health problem.
The US researchers studied 3761 adult patients diagnosed with depression. Half of these patients had a family history of depression whereas the other half suffered from multiple spells of depression.
They found patients responded differently to the same treatment and doctors had to find individualized combination of drugs best suited for the patient.
In the research, all the patients were started on the same drug, Celexa, manufactured by Forest Laboratories. 37 percent of the patients went into remission after this treatment. For the rest of the patients another drug belonging to the same class of drugs was added to the previous treatment using the drug Celexa. The researchers found that 31 percent of patients benefited from this new line of treatment. After the third and the fourth attempts the success rates were 14 percent and 13 percent respectively.
When these results were combined, the researchers found that 67 percent or about two thirds of the patients benefited by the treatment using a combinations of drugs.
The researchers are still trying to find out the reasons for one third of the patients not responding to any treatments. The reasons might be biological or generic differences or the patients might be on other medications which may interfere with their treatment.
The downside to this line of treatment is that the chances of a relapse are higher because the patients have to change their drugs a number of times to find a suitable combination.
The doctors suggest that the patients should try the medication for 14 weeks and if there is no improvement, they should consider adding another treatment or changing the combination of drugs.
