Following elderly individuals with depression for periods of up to two years, a University of Pittsburgh trial found that individuals were less likely to have recurrent depression if they received two years of maintenance therapy with the anti-depressant paroxetine. So-called ‘maintenance psychotherapy’ offered once a month for 45 minutes did not prevent recurrent depression.
Federal regulators in the US have approved the world’s first antidepressant skin patch, the selegiline transdermal patch, to be marketed under the name ‘Emsam’. The drug, first approved in the 1980s to help treat Parkinson’s disease, belongs to a category of less frequently used antidepressants prone to interactions with a substance called tyramine. The antidepressant patch will carry a ‘black box’ warning from the FDA.
No, that’s not to say that CBT will put you to sleep! Rather, an article carried on the APA’s PsycPort highlights studies indicating that cognitive behavioural therapy can improve sleep about as well as drugs can. According to the article, not only can talk therapy such as CBT help with sleeping problems, but its effects continue for many months — unlike the effects of drugs, where effectiveness is not known to continue after discontinuing the medication.
A 2-year longitudinal study shows that men and women taking the experimental weight-loss drug rimonabant lost weight and kept it off. However, specialists warn that medication use should be minimized when lifestyle changes can achieve the same purpose.
Last week, an FDA advisory committee voted to recommend adding ‘black box’ safety warnings to ADHD drugs. This week, the director of the FDA’s division of psychiatry products says it would be unusual for the agency to issue a ‘black box’ warning based on such thin evidence. A second FDA committee, which focuses on pediatrics, will consider the drugs’ safety next month.
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