Active clinical trials for "Dysthymic Disorder"

Major depression, chronic depression and bipolar depression are complex and difficult disorders to treat. They are often associated with residual symptoms with significant functional impairment. Yoga has been shown to be beneficial in treating depressive symptoms but without the added risks associated with medication use and has the advantage of high consumer appeal (with likelihood of good compliance). However, it has only been tested in unipolar depression, thus far. Yoga if shown to be effective (as an adjunctive to pharmacotherapy) in improving residual symptoms and decreasing risk of relapse, would be of significant long-term benefit to patients not only with major and chronic depression, but also for those with bipolar disorder. The aim of the study is to determine the safety and effectiveness of Yoga as an augmentation treatment to pharmacotherapy and in comparison to psychoeducation, in improving residual symptoms of depression over 16 weeks and in prevention of relapse/recurrence of mood episodes over 1 year, in subjects with unipolar and bipolar disorders.

The primary objective of the study is to evaluate whether armodafinil at a target dosage of 200 mg/day is more effective than placebo treatment in improving excessive sleepiness in patients with obstructive sleep apnea/hypopnea syndrome (OSAHS) who have comorbid major depressive disorder or dysthymic disorder.

The goal of this open-administration treatment study of citalopram (or duloxetine) is to evaluate the effect of antidepressant medication on treating the syndrome of "frailty" in older adults with depressive symptoms. Patients with significant depressive symptoms (defined as CES-D (Center for Epidemiological Studies - Depression scale) > 10) and 1 or more symptoms of the frailty syndrome (exhaustion, decreased energy, weight loss, decreased grip strength, and slow/unsteady gait) will be evaluated and treated with citalopram (or duloxetine) for 8 weeks to test whether antidepressant medication improves both the syndrome of frailty and depressive symptoms. Patients evaluated at the Adult and Late Life Depression clinic and eligible to participate in the study will be treated with an antidepressant medication and assessed on the primary outcome variables (characteristics of frailty, depressive symptoms) as well as on secondary variables which include cognition (global cognition, episodic memory, executive function), and function (physical mobility, instrumental activities of daily living, and social functioning) prior to treatment initiation and following 8-weeks of treatment. The hypotheses for this protocol predict that we will discover a significant improvement on both frailty characteristics and depressive symptoms in this clinical population when treated with antidepressant medication (citalopram or duloxetine).

The purpose of this study is to determine the efficacy of a brief psychological intervention focused on the personal dilemmas identified for each depressive patient. For that, this intervention is combined to group cognitive therapy (an already proven efficacious format) and compared to cognitive individual therapy.

Depression is a debilitating illness affecting large numbers of young people. In this study, children and adolescents ages 10 to 17 meeting criteria for clinical depression will participate in a 15-session group therapy (cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT) that teaches strategies for overcoming depressed mood. For half the participants, their parents will also participate in a parent group. By studying the role of parental involvement, we hope to develop more effective treatments for depressed children and teens in the future.

The investigators hypothesize that patients receiving citalopram in combination with lithium will have a greater reduction in depressive symptoms than patients receiving citalopram in combination with placebo.

The main purpose of this study is to correlate brain testing with treatment outcome.

The investigators are adapting Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT-A) for adolescents who are referred to emergency services either for a suicide attempt or for being evaluated as high risk for suicidal behavior. The investigators will recruit 15 adolescents ages 12-19 years who present with a diagnosis of major depression, dysthymic disorder, depression disorder not otherwise specified who have a history of a suicide attempt in the past 2 months or a non-medically lethal attempt that may require psychiatric hospitalization, suicide attempt that is or report current suicidal ideation with a plan/intent, and treat them in an open clinical trial. The treatment will be conducted twice weekly for the first 8 weeks of treatment and then weekly for the remaining 12 weeks of the study. Using feedback from clinicians and participants, the investigators will make further modifications to the manual in preparation for conducting a larger controlled clinical trial.

Depressed patients will have hearing tests and then be treated with up to three treatments (i.e., Fluoxetine, Imipramine) until remitted, to see whether test results predict specific outcomes.

This study will recruit 100 depressed patients to test whether the previous finding of an association between treatment response (with treatment groups including placebo, imipramine, and fluoxetine) and preferences of hemispheric laterality in perceptual processing are also found with a different type of commonly used anti-depressant, bupropion.