Health
Depressed patients' physical symptoms persist after treatment
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted Sept. 27, 2004
Patients with depression treated with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors frequently have an improvement of their mental health. Their physical symptoms such as headaches or stomach trouble, however, don't go away quite as easily, according to a study published in the August Journal of General Internal Medicine.
Researchers recruited more than 500 patients diagnosed with depression. Subjects were randomized to receive one of three SSRIs and surveyed five times over a nine-month period. Depression improved continually. The minor ailments, which are widely believed to be a sign of depression, improved significantly in the first month of treatment but then hit a plateau. For example, after nine months of treatment nearly a third of subjects were still bothered significantly by fatigue and 20% still had sleep problems.
The authors of the paper concluded that patients who do not have a resolution of their physical complaints may need a different treatment strategy for their depression.
"It is important to ask patients with depression about physical symptoms at the start of treatment and, when assessing improvement, ask about physical as well as emotional symptoms," said Kurt Kroenke, MD, lead author and professor of medicine in the division of general internal medicine and geriatrics at Indiana University.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2004/09/27/hlbf0927.htm.
