Light Therapy For Depression
It may 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 dependency on drugs in the future. But it requires a intense clinical research effort to build the efficiency of new applications - consider that it took fifteen years for the classic trials of intense light treatment to come to completion.
Studies of light therapy for depression haven’t been prohibited to depression.
There’s promising proof that it might be efficacious in non seasonal depression also. A joint trial at Columbia varsity Medical Center and Wesleyan varsity suggests that patients with protracted depression - who have experienced almost no relief in years - reply as well to light therapy 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 suppressor drug trials, and found the improvement rates to be similar. One serious difference is that light seems to work inside one week, while medicines may take up to eight weeks to match the efficiency of light. Curiously light used with medication seems 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 health tests have been finished, focussing 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 seem to reduce the physical suggestions of “premenstrual tension.” Many ladies have employed the care for no less than 2 years, with maintained positive answer. While a perfect dosing regimen still should be determined, light care stands as a choice especially for women who have not replied to medication for PMS, or who have been worried by medication complications and deserted treatment due to this.
