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Clinical depression is a serious medical illness that can be challenging to treat. This week on Health Watch, we’ll talk about new research into treating depression.
Dr. Madhukar Trivedi, a psychiatrist at UT Southwestern Medical Center, says a lot of other illnesses, like high blood pressure or diabetes, are treated from the start with combinations of drugs. However, this approach hasn’t yet been tested on depression in a large sample of patients. Previous studies have helped doctors develop a sequence of treatment steps, but only about a third of patients achieve remission after the first step, and 20 percent of those relapse. UT Southwestern researchers hope to improve that success rate by starting treatment with a combination of two commonly prescribed medications in a large-scale study. The outcome of this study could change the way depression is treated.
Visit http://www.utsouthwestern.org/mentalhealth to learn more about
UT Southwestern’s clinical services in mental health.
