Light Therapy For Depression
It could be just significant coincidental that light treatment was first identified as a treatment for depression, because many new applications are on the horizon. This will have wide implications for reducing the dependence on drugs in the future. But it takes a intense clinical research effort to create the efficacy of new applications – consider that it took 15 years for the classic trials of intense light treatment to come to completion.
Studies of light therapy for depression have not been prohibited to depression.
There’s promising explanation that it may be efficacious in non seasonal depression also. A joint trial at Columbia college Medical Center and Wesleyan varsity means that patients with protracted depression – who have experienced almost no relief in years – answer as well to light care as do patients with depression.
Dr. Daniel Kripke of the School of California at San Diego compared a collection of placebo-controlled trials of intense light with mood suppressant drug trials, and found the improvement rates to be similar. One serious difference is that light appears to work inside one week, while medicines may take up to 8 weeks to match the potency of light. Curiously light used with drugs appears to be better than either one alone. Many Western european surgeries have just started to administer light treatment alongside drug treatment. Another promising use of intense light is in the treating of symptoms related to PMS. Many medical tests have been finished, concentrating on light treatment in the luteal phase preceding menstruation, with heavy relief of premenstrual depression.
Not only has light treatment helped improve the mood of PMS sufferers, but it would appear to scale back the physical indications of “premenstrual tension.” Many women have made use of the care for no less than 2 years, with maintained positive reply. While an ideal dosing regimen still should be determined, light care stands as a choice particularly for women who have not answered to medication for PMS, or who have been worried by medication complications and deserted treatment because of this.