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By Lindsay Braun, Ivanhoe Health Correspondent
ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- New research shows a combination approach to therapy is the most effective way to treat depressed adolescents.
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Experts believe as many as one in eight adolescents suffer from depression. The Treatment for Adolescents with Depression Study is a randomized controlled study, evaluating three different treatment options for depressed teens. Researchers are studying treatment with fluoxetine drugs, like Prozac, cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), or a combination of the two.
The TADS research team randomly assigned 439 adolescents with depression to one of the three treatment groups, and assigned another group to receive placebo pills. These groups of teenagers were moderately to severely ill; theyd been depressed on average for a year and a half. Half of them were sick with something else besides depression, and a third of them were acutely suicidal. This was a sick a bunch of kids, who almost nobody could argue shouldnt be treated aggressively for depression, John March, M.D., chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at Duke University, told Ivanhoe.
After 36 weeks of study, researchers found 86 percent of teens on the combination therapy had responded. That was compared to 81 percent of teens in each of the other groups.
Dr. March explains that results come the quickest for patients on drug treatment, but the benefits of CBT soon catch up, and prove to be very beneficial. In the end, its the combination of the two that will deliver the quickest and most complete recovery.
The calculus of risk and benefit is strongest with combination therapy, and those findings are crystal clear. Dr. March told Ivanhoe. If you get medication you get better a lot quicker than if you dont. And also, if you look at the trend toward regression of symptoms, a larger portion of the subjects do not regress in the combination group.
This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, which offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, click on: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.
SOURCE: Ivanhoe interview with John March, M.D.; Archives of General Psychiatry, 2007;64:1132-1144
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