No abstract

Many reports of the efficacy of light therapy are not based on rigorous study designs. This analysis of randomized, controlled trials suggests that bright light treatment and dawn simulation for seasonal affective disorder and bright light for nonseasonal depression are efficacious, with effect sizes equivalent to those in most antidepressant pharmacotherapy trials. Adopting standard approaches to light therapy's specific issues (e.g., defining parameters of active versus placebo conditions) and incorporating rigorous designs (e.g., adequate group sizes, randomized assignment) are necessary to evaluate light therapy for mood disorders.

Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is a model for studying the relative contributions of genetic and environmental factors to psychiatric disorders in mothers of children with disabilities. Here, we examine the frequency and predictors of mood and anxiety disorders in mothers with the FMR1 premutation. Ninety-three females with the FMR1 premutation were in the study and were compared to 2,159 women from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R) dataset. Mood and anxiety disorders were assessed using the SCID-I. Our data reflect elevated lifetime major depressive disorder (MDD), lifetime panic disorder without agoraphobia and current agoraphobia without panic disorder in the FMR1 premutation sample. Also, we found a low frequency of lifetime social phobia, specific phobia, and post-traumatic stress disorders and current specific phobia in the FMR1 premutation sample. The profile of MDD in the FMR1 premutation sample was not episodic or comorbid with an anxiety disorder, as in the NCS-R dataset. Never having been married and smaller CGG repeat length were associated with increased likelihood of MDD while increased children with FXS in the family and greater child problem behaviors were associated with increased likelihood of an anxiety disorder in the FMR 1 premutation group. Major depression in females with the FMR1 premutation may not be characterized as an episodically chronic recurrent disorder as it is in community samples and may have a genetic basis given the relationship with CGG repeat length and lack of association with all child and most demographic factors.

These results suggest that stressful life events, dysphoric mood and limited social support are associated with more rapid clinical progression in HIV infection, with serum cortisol also exerting an independent effect on disease progression.

Further research is needed to determine if treatments based on these findings might alter the clinical course of HIV-1 infection.

Our findings are among the first prospective data showing that stress and depressive symptoms, especially when they occur jointly, are associated with decreased number of NK and CD8+ T lymphocytes in HIV-infected men. Since these immune cells may play a protective role in the progression of HIV infection, our data suggest that stress and depressive symptoms may have clinical implications for the course of this disease.

Maternal depression in families having a child with a disability has been the subject of considerable research over the past 25 years. This review was designed to describe the literature on maternal depression, critique its research methodology, identify consensus findings across studies, and make recommendations for future research. A particular emphasis is on the distinction between exhibiting depressive symptoms and meeting clinical criteria for a depressive disorder, how or whether research studies made this distinction, and implications for our understanding of maternal adaptation to disability in a family member. Of the 42 articles reviewed, only eight were clinically diagnosed depression; most of them used a scale rating depressive symptoms. Across the studies, mothers of children with disabilities generally exhibited a higher than average rate of depressive symptoms and are more at risk for clinical depression, but the incidence may be lower than reported in previous literature. Child behavior problems, maternal stress, coping style, and support were consistently associated with depressive symptoms. We conclude that we know relatively little about clinical depression in mothers of children with disabilities. The distinction between clinical depression and depressive symptoms may be important in conceptualizing how a child with a disability can influence family members and the nature of support that may need to be provided. Future research should incorporate gold standard diagnostic tools and assess history, severity, and type of depression. Research is also needed to study treatments to reduce the occurrence of both depressive symptoms and clinical depression.

We carried out a correlational analysis of the scores on the Blessed Information-Memory-Concentration Test and the Mini-Mental State Exam in 40 subjects with Alzheimer's disease. The average product moment correlation coefficient between the two tests on repeated administration over 6 weeks ranged from -0.73 to -0.83. Both tests demonstrated test-retest reliability coefficients of 0.75 and above. A formula was developed to convert one test score to the other.