Depressed? Net-based Treatments Can Help

Jung and the Restless writes "Researchers at an Australian university have found that regular visits to therapeutic and educational web sites can successfully treat depression. Researchers directed patients to The MoodGYM, a cognitive behavior therapy site, and BluePages, a depression education site. After 12 months, users of both web sites reported improvement, with the educational site working out better than the behavior therapy site. A psychotherapist who did not participate in the study says that the results aren't all that surprising. 'Cognitive behavioral strategies — sometimes in conjunction with medication — are the most effective means of treating depression,' and 'a person who is visiting an educational site like BluePages is taking the necessary steps with her own self-care. That's a key component of successful treatment for depression'"

Comments

Re:Psychologists need to learn more than this

[DamnYouIAmALion]

I had this same problem, the doctors were going the medication route - but I also had anxiety, so giving medication with poor documentation and statistics just made things worse. In the end I managed to spend time with a psychologist (not easy, they're either very expensive or very busy) which helped a great deal - although not until some time after the fact when you process and understand what they're saying.

They get you only so far - and at that point you'll eventually get the willpower to 'pick yourself up' and start building your life back. It takes time, but it's really worth it.

- Andy.

Another Site of Interest

[darrenadelaide]

Hi,

Just thought you may find http://www.beyondblue.org.au/ of interest.

Re:Psychologists need to learn more than this

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that CBT and medication are the best ways to treat depression. They are both better than "talk" therapy for nearly all patients, though the medication route is a bit problematic - most patients get the best medication for them after trying quite a few different types. So, if one type of drug isn't working, you shouldn't be afraid to try different ones, possibly of a different class.

It is true that for a significant minority of sufferers of depression, that even trying both of these treatments they get little response. For people with refractory depression like this, I believe there isn't much other than trying to "wait it out" with standard treatment, or going the more severe route of electroshock therapy. There are new drugs coming out all the time, so people who have refractory depression are often shuttled onto new drugs as they become available. There are also new experimental treatments like electrical brain stimulation that may prove helpful for some...

It can be a struggle, but hang in there - doctors are getting better at successfully treating it all the time (well, they can't get worse anyway ;).

Re:Where's the control group?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

That's unethical. You can't treat someone for a disease with a placebo.

Of course you can. How do you think drug trials work? Ethical or not, an untreated control group is the only way to ensure that the treatment is effective, and that any improvement isn't due to environmental/unrelated factors.

Another option is to use standard treatments combined with your new therapy, and then have a control group do standard treatments alone.

This is also a valid option, but what happens when the standard treatements can't be combined with the new treatments?

Re:Psychologists need to learn more than this

[Hatta]

Ketamine works like an SSRI but blocks a different group of neuro thingies

Please don't spread misinformation like that. The action of ketamine is entirely unlike that of SSRIs. Sure they both inhibit some proteins in neurons but hell, if that's your criteria for "works like" you could say aspirin "works like" SSRIs. Your statement is so vague as to be misleading. SSRIs block the reuptake of neurotransmitters presynaptically so that there is more neurotransmitter available to cause a post-synaptic response. Ketamine blocks the postsynaptic NMDA receptor, inhibiting a post-synaptic response. SSRIs work on the serotonin system, ketamine on the glutamate system.

The antidepressant response to ketamine is a truely novel phenomenon. I suspect it has some similarities to the response to electroconvulsive therapy, since many of the same players (NMDA receptor, CaMKII) are involved in each.

In other news involving novel theraputic uses of recreational drugs, MDMA seems to help treat parkinsons symptoms. Check it out at the New Scientist. Maybe we can get Michael J. Fox to come out in favor of medicinal MDMA?