Treatment of Intractable Depression

Abstract

Depression is a frequently encountered psychiatric disorder. Current methods of treatment of these syndromes range from psychotherapy, pharmacotherapy, electroconvulsive therapy and in severe refractory cases, lobotomy. Despite the usefulness of all these methods, 10-28 % of the depressed patients remain refractory to treatment (Bratfos and Haug, 1968; Greenblatt et al, 1964; Smith et al, 1969). As suicide is a relatively high risk in depressed patients, refractory patients may run even higher risk. Hence, various workers have attempted to enhance the antidepressant effects of medications by different techniques. As the basis of all these techniques remain hypothetical at this time, the conclusive evidence of the effectiveness of these methods can come from the clinical application of these techniques by the physicians in treating their intractable, depressed patients.

Tricyclics and newer antidepressant medications: Treatment options for treatment‐resistant depressions

“…The MAOIs have been widely used as secondor thlrd-line treatments for TRD for over 30 years (Ananth and Raskin, 1974;Ayd, 1983;Nierenberg and White, 1990;Devlin and Walsh, 1990a,b;Pare, 1979;Shawcross and Tyrer, 1987). Several open trials of MAOI treatment in TRD have been published (Scluele, 1965;Roose et al, 1986;Quitkin et al, 1981;Thase et al, 1992a;Lazarus et al, 1986;Ryan et al, 1988;Georgotas et al, 1983).…”