- Approximately 30% of people with major depression, have treatment-resistant depression, meaning it doesn’t respond to first and second-line antidepressants prescribed.
- While older people aren’t more likely to have treatment-resistant depression, clinical depression is linked to cognitive decline in this group.
- It is unclear what the reasons for this are, but it poses a further threat to health and quality of life.
- A recent study has looked at the possibility that using antipsychotics alongside antidepressants in people with major depression over the age of 60 could improve outcomes in this group.
While many people who experience depression can be treated with antidepressants and talking therapies, a minority of patients don’t respond to first or second-line antidepressants.
These patients are deemed to have treatment-resistant depression. While not more prevalent in older people, depression is linked to cognitive decline, though reasons for the link are unclear.
One avenue for treatment researchers have recently been interested in is to see if combining existing antidepressants with other drugs, including other antidepressants, antipsychotics, and thyroid hormone medication could help hard-to-treat forms of depression, especially in older adults.
A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine looked at the effect of combining existing antidepressants with an antipsychotic or the mood-stabilizing drug lithium, compared to antidepressants often used to treat severe and intractable depression.
Prof. David Feifel, Emeritus professor of psychiatry at UC San Diego and founder of Kadima Neuropsychiatry Institute which specializes in treating patients with treatment-resistant depression, told Medical News Today that depression could be a symptom of cognitive decline in older adults, “but it is more likely that that the cognitive decline is a symptom of the depression.”
“Clinical depression is associated with something called ‘pseudo-
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