Depression in the News

Do you suffer from a season specific depression, sometimes called Seasonal Affect Disorder, or SAD? I know some people who do. I seem to suffer from depression especially in the winter months when the daylight hours are shorter. The mood disorder can be debilitating at times.

Recently, I read an article about light box therapy in comparison to the use of Prozac on the Softpedia website, subsidiary of the SoftNews NET SRL. I started out reading an article on the Medical News Today website. I subscribe to several newsletters that report on medical advances, about mental health issues and the medications for those conditions. I must have clicked on a link while I was perusing the Medical News website. It brought me to an article about Seasonal Affect Disorder (SAD) and a recent study done comparing the effectiveness of light box therapy with taking antidepressants.

A few weeks ago I wrote an article about SAD and light box therapy. I was going to talk with my doctor about a prescription for the therapy. He did give me one at my last appointment and I took it to the medical supply company that I use for some of my medical needs. They could special order the light that I needed, but they couldn't tell me whether our health insurance would cover the box. They speculated that it probably would not be covered or that we'd have to pay the co-pay first. At this time I am not able to cover that expense, so we have had to put off that option. In the meantime, I have done an online study of the different boxes and have placed some of the ones I like on a wishlist for future reference.

Since I'm not able to use the light box therapy as I had wanted to, and I did promise those of you who read my last article an update, I'm combining that update with a report on this study.

The study in question was conducted by Canadian researchers and the results were reported in the American Journal of Psychiatry. While not the first study to scrutinize the effectiveness of the light box, this study compared its effectiveness with the use of Prozac, a commonly known antidepressant.

Researchers from the Mood Disorders Center in Vancouver, British Columbia, Dr. Raymond W. Lam and colleagues, assessed a group of 96 patients divided into two groups. The first group received light therapy plus a placebo which they supposed to be an antidepressant. The second group received a placebo light box and 20 mg a day of Prozac. Participants with the light box received "treatment" exposure to the light for 30 minutes a day. The study duration was 8 weeks.

Both the light box therapy and the antidepressant Prozac provided significant improvements in the depressive symptoms, according to the journal article's author, Dr. Lam. At closer examination, the light box therapy provided a quicker initial improvement, but after one week, there were no differences between the two groups. In both groups there were some expected side effects from the type of therapy, especially those common to Prozac such as agitation and sleep disturbances.

The next step in the study would be to examine which therapy would be most effective for particular types of patients. I find the study reassuring that both therapies are equally effective. As long as I am unable to afford the actual antidepressants, I have hope that the light box, which we plan to purchase for my use some time in the future, will be something I can use to help me through the dark months.

It's something to consider. If you would like to know more about the different types of boxes available, go to Amazon.com and do a search under light box therapy. You'll find a wide assortment of price ranges. I would further suggest you write down the specific details of the light box you are interested in and Google it for more information, prices and availability.