Depression is one of the common psychiatric disorders that are known as the leading cause of disability globally. Depression is considered as a recurring disorder. There are various medications that have been established for the treatment and management of depression conditions. Some medicines that are used to treat as well as manage depression are purely palliative.
Palliative medication is those medications that are used to suppress the symptoms of depressions as long as they are administered, but do nothing in addressing the underlying problems that trigger the disorder.
The other type of medication that is widely used to treat depression condition is the healing process that helps in reverse or eliminates the fundamental process that results to the continuation of depression. Another option that it is used to manage depression disorder is the prophylactic process that offsets the process that trigger future onset of the disorder.
The curative and prophylactic processes are both enduring effects with the curative method preventing the relapse of the symptoms while the prophylactic procedures prevent the reoccurrence of the depression condition.
Thus, the current depression medications are categorized as either classified as affective in that they palliative in that they suppress the symptoms as long as they are being taken, while a relapse results when they administration is terminated.
Those interventions that are cognitive, as well as behavioral, are mainly curative as well as prophylactic. These interventions primarily result in lasting solutions or eliminate future reoccurrences of the depression conditions. The use of antidepressant in the control and management of depression has been noted to be highly effective.
Antidepressant is an example of a palliative medication that works by suppressing symptoms as long as it is been administered. Another method that is highly employed in the management of depression is the use of interpersonal psychotherapy as it helps in relieving acute distress as well as enhancing relationships.
This is an example of prophylactic process that helps in the lasting producing solutions for the depression condition as well as preventing instances of elapse in the future (Hollon, Stewart and Strunk, 2006).
Cognitive therapy is regarded as one of the most effective methods for the treatment and management of depression condition.
In this type of medication, people suffering from depression conditions are trained on gathering information is a systematic process in order to offset the influence of maladaptive information-processing methods and to carry out behavioral tests to measure the accuracy of their negative perceptions.
In this method of medication, patients use a series of logical tools in order to recognize the relapse nature of depression. In this process, the patients are guided on how to prepare for the termination of the cognitive therapy as early as during the initiation of the treatment.
In addition, patients are also informed about the explicit practice in order to prevent relapse cases. The use of cognitive therapy in the treatment of depression conditions is observed to be more productive by over fifty percent the results obtained from patients treated through other medications (Teasdale, Segal, Williams, Ridgeway, Soulsby and Lau, 2000).
Research has shown that despite the effectiveness of the cognitive therapy in treating depression conditions, the method does not prevent instances of relapse, which is onset of the new episodes of the depression condition.
It is noted that people who suffer from depression conditions are at high risk for the symptoms to reoccur mainly within the first six to nine months after starting medications provided that the underlying episode triggering the condition has to run its course once more.
Thus, pharmacotherapists mainly do not withdraw their medications so soon after initial response. However, studies have shown that cognitive therapy has lasting effects even after the termination of the treatment. Cognitive treatment is observed to be highly effective when it is administered after the medication has been administered to reduce acute distress.
It is noted that the use of cognitive therapy to supplement medication treatment helps to resolve the issue of residue symptoms as well as reducing subsequent relapse cases after termination of the psychosocial treatment. Other methods of depression interventions have not been well tested.
For instance, dynamic psychotherapy intervention has been noted not to be highly efficacious towards the treatment of acute distress, although, it is noted to have an enduring effect in the absence of any immediate effect which makes it very difficult to notice such an effect.
Cognitive therapy is a treatment of acute depression which has long-term consequences in minimizing risk of future reoccurrence mainly through patients getting skills or alterations in thinking that guarantee some extent of protection against future relapse.
Nowadays, the best management of the relapse and recurring of depression is a combination of pharmacotherapy for the acute episode with psychological prophylactic interventions given following recovery.
Many scholars have observed that such an approach has been very effective in the treatment and management of depression. It is noted that combining the treatment of antidepressant with cognitive behavior therapy following recovery while, at the same time, withdrawing antidepressant administration gradually.
The reason why the combination of acute pharmacotherapy with psychological prophylaxis provides the possibility of capitalizing on the cost-efficiency of using antidepressant medication to reduce potential acute symptomatology while, at the same time, avoiding the affected people continuing on indefinite medicines in order to avoid future relapse sand recurring (Hollon, Stewart and Strunk, 2006).
It is noted that the tendency of relapse and recurrence should reduce if patients who have recovered from depression learn first to be more sensitive of the negative thoughts and feelings at periods of loaming relapse as well as respond to thoughts and feelings that enable them to disengage from ruminative depressive processing.
The mindfulness-based cognitive therapy is tailored in teaching individuals on how to become more aware of thoughts and feelings and to relate them broader reflections of the reality.
It is noted that a successful strategy of preventing recurrence as well as relapse of depression is by in cultivation of a detached of depression-related thoughts that trigger feelings of depressions. This helps in escalation of thoughts related to depression at instances of potential relapse.
More research is needed in order to establish why MBCT does not prevent the recurrence in patients with a history of only two episodes of depression. The study should establish why the program has not been successful in preventing relapse of depression in less than two episodes instances, whereas it has been very effective in preventing depression episodes in more than three episodes.
The program is well known for its success in reducing the contribution of patterns of depressive thinking reactivated by dysphoria to the mechanism of mediating recurrence and relapses. It suggests that dysphoria-linked thinking is the one that is associated with repeated instances of depression episodes and elapses.
Therefore, more research is required in the same in order to establish how it can be administered for those individuals who had experienced depression episodes for two instances. In addition, more research is needed in order to come up with the best approach that should be undertaken in order to make sure that the relapse and recurrence cease completely when an individual undertakes medication.
The combination of medication treatment and cognitive behavioral therapy has been noted to be very effective in managing the depression episodes as well as reducing instances of relapse and recurrence. However, the process has not been wholly successful in managing the condition.
There are some instances of relapse as well as recurrence episodes that often results following the combined medication treatment and cognitive therapy administration. Thus, more study is required in order to establish a more effective enduring strategy of preventing any relapse or recurrence once an individual undertakes the therapy or medication.
As a generation of test yourself, the readers should make sure that they seek appropriate assistances from their family doctors when they realize any symptomatic deterioration that is associated with depression.
In addition, it is essential for people and mainly those highly vulnerable to depression to undertake MBCT program that is based on teaching skills that help individuals to disengage from habitual dysfunction patterns cognitive patterns as a strategy to minimize potential risks of recurrence as well as relapse of depression.
Reference List
Hollon, S., Stewart, M., and Strunk, D. (2006).Therapy in the Treatment of Depression and Anxiety. Psychology Annual Review, 57: 285-315.
Teasdale, J., Segal, Z, Williams, J., Ridgeway, V. Soulsby, J., and Lau, M. (2000). Prevention of Relapse/ Recurrence IN Major Depression by Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 68 (4): 615-623.