Comments: Aaron Beck Wins Lasker Award
i totally agree, it is way more than meds, and half-lives lived on them, is less than what the goal should be.
Just being "woken up" with meds isnt gonna cut it.
What happens next docs?
(silence).
Posted by Stephany at September 18, 2006 05:56 PM
Hi, Philip. Here's the study that cracked it wide open:
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/342/20/1462?maxtoshow=&HITS=20&hits=20&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=Keller&searchid=1058637220071_5446&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=Score+desc+PUBDATE_SORTDATE+desc&fdate=1/1/2000&tdate=7/31/2000&journalcode=nejm
In a nutshell: A form of CBT and an antidepressant were each about as effective with depressed patients. That part of the study was predictable. What raised eyebrows was that the two treatments together resulted in exceptionally high response and remission rates.
A drug company spent more than $20 million on the study. It's a major trial, highly-powered. We need way more studies like this.
CBT has definitely arrived. As well as for depression, it is now being used to nip mania episodes in the bud. Check out Monica Basco's Bipolar Workbook.
Posted by John McManamy at September 18, 2006 06:26 PM
I have to follow up on my post above, that says "what happens next docs?" (silence).
What I am finding out, is that their primary goal is to get the patient back to what they call "baseline" or "close to baseline", even if they didn't know what the person's base was prior, to for instance, a year-long psychotic break.
What happened in real-time next for my daughter, was to be sent to a residential housing situation.
That is a wonderful service for the age population that is housed where she lives, but I can tell ya, this is not about rehab into the world for any of them.
It's gonna be up to me to find the CBT or the DBT, assist and make sure she gets her HS diploma, so she can possibly get a foothold back into life.
The services out there are rare and hard to find, my daughter is young and fortunate to gain them so young, for that I am grateful, as well as for the meds that appear to have "awakened" her....but she is far from having a quality life right now.
To wake up, and be drugged up to the max, pale with tremors, and fatigue....well, that is not how I hope she lives the rest of her life.
It is how I have seen many others live theirs, and I'm not too happy about what I have seen in the mental health arena.
Enormous change needs to happen. If an 18 year old can be set aside to stare at a TV all day in a residential housing setting, and doctors stop there, just because they reached a "baseline"--- calling THAT victorious....well, I don't.
Posted by Stephany at September 19, 2006 08:03 AM