Stanford Professor Robert Sapolsky says "depression is like the worst disease you can get." Here is an excerpt from that lecture. A video of the complete lecture is available here. During a recent workshop presented by Stanford's Faculty and Staff Help Center, biologist Robert Sapolsky talked about the biological and psychological causes of depression, how to recognize its symptoms and how to handle the disease. In short depression is an illness not a weakness.Related posts: Understanding Depression in Kidney Disease Parkinson’s Disease and Depression Depression and Coronary Heart Disease in Women ..read more »

patients with depression often complain of difficulty getting to sleep, frequent awakenings during the night, early morning awakening, or nonrestorative sleep patients with mood disorders exhibit higher rates of sleep disturbance than the general population, and sleep disturbance can continue even during periods of remission patients with insomnia are up to 10 times more likely to have depression than normal sleepers individuals with persistent insomnia have a significantly higher risk of developing new-onset depression than those who have no sleep complaints 14% of patients with persistent insomnia had concurrent depression whereas depression occurred in less than 1% of patients who had no sleep complaints patients .....read more »

QUEST on KQED Public Media. A very good video about the symptoms of depression and antidepressants. It shows how antidepressants are supposed to work with nice graphics. The next topic is Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation or TMS. An option when medication isn't working. One of 9 options for treatment resistant depression. A treatment is shown with some explanation of how it works. The FDA has approved TMS for depression, but is still costs a lot of money. Personally I am not impressed with the evidence of the efficacy of TMS for depression Also shown is .....read more »

From talented journalist and editor to homeless, to depression, to suicidal...and back again. Impressive story. Hope always, always finds a way. Becky Blanton planned to live in her van for a year and see the country, but when depression set in and her freelance job ended, her camping trip turned into homelessness. In this intimate talk, she describes her experience of becoming one of America's working homeless. Related posts: The Solist, about a Homeless Man with Schizophrenia Hands on Experience with Deep Brain Stimulation for Depression Old Year/New Year Dutch Grand Round 10.1 is up ..read more »

It's the time of year again, the time for Seasonal Affective Disorder or Winter Depression. In the beginning of this year I posted the criteria for seasonal affective disorder (SAD). Very characteristic for SAD is that most SAD patients develop ‘atypical’ symptoms of increased fatigue, increased sleep duration and increased appetite and weight. Not only do SAD patients crave carbohydrates, but also they actually report eating more carbohydrate-rich foods in the winter. Genes and serotonin play an important role in this kind of depression as can be read in Seasonal Affective Disorder and Genes. Treatment For mild to moderate seasonal affective disorder, bright .....read more »

“In general, a motivated GP in an urban setting (where the rate of depression is 20%) would correctly diagnose ten out of 20 cases, missing ten true positives. The GP would correctly reassure 65 out of 80 non-depressed individuals, falsely diagnosing 15 people as depressed”? Now is this a bad thing? I don't think so. The diagnoses of depression has a large overlap with adjustment disorders. An adjustment disorder will subside within weeks all by itself. Most mild depressions which exist shorter than 3 months subside within weeks to months (50%). Moreover, more-severe cases of depression are diagnosed more reliably than less-severe .....read more »

Online Cognitive Behavioral Psychotherapy for Depression: Pretrial assessment screening by telephone for in and exclusion criteria A face to face appointment with one of the researchers to complete a computerized assessment: SCID and Beck Depression Inventory Online CBT with a therapist online in real time Patients were allocated to one therapist Patients made their own appointments online Sessions were secured by individual passwords Patienst and therapists typed free text into the computer, with messages sent instantaneously; no other media or means of communication were used So this is how you do online real time cognitive behavioral therapy. But does it work? 43 (38%) patients recovered from depression (BDI score .....read more »

A big city usually is not a quiet empty place to enjoy nature. They can be overcrowded, busy, smelling places with people rushing from one spot to another. Nevertheless cities can have a soul. Rotterdam, the city I live in is one of the largest harbors of the world, it's always busy, recreating itself. Following the German air raids of May 1940, the city was completely rebuilt in a daring and innovative new style. The skyline of Rotterdam with the Erasmus Bridge is justifiably world famous. But it doesn't stop there, it's still going on. Why does this .....read more »

50 to 60 % of patients with a depressive disorder fail to respond to their first antidepressant. These rates increase in clinical practice setting to 65 to 85%. Estimates of treatment resistant depression (TRD) prevalence varies greatly depending on treatment setting. The lowest TRD prevalence is in primary care and progressively higher rates occur in outpatient psychiatric settings, inpatients settings and academic tertiairy setting. What is Treatment-Resistant Depression? An inadequate response to an adequate course of treatment in a patient meeting criteria for major depressive disorder. Treatment is usually antidepresssants. Depression is not bipolar depression. This diagnoses needs a different approach. An .....read more »

A new blog: Pilots with Depression that got my attention due to a reaction on the post Can Pilots Fly When Using Antidepressants? Most airlines don’t allow their pilots flying when on antidepressants. In Australia they have a better attitude to this problem, because to my opinion it is better to have a pilot on antidepressants than a depressed pilot. This conclusion was substantiated by results research: A study presented at a conference of the World Psychiatric Association in Melbourne on Friday found no statistical difference between medicated and non-medicated pilots in terms of their safety record. But importantly, there was a .....read more »