3Aug
Optimizing treatment for depression in patients who also have arthritis reduces their pain and improves their quality of life.
Depression and arthritis are both common in older people and so they often occur together. Depression is known to make arthritis worse, by increasing disability. So what happens when the depression is treated effectively?
Researchers have studied nearly 2,000 individuals with both arthritis and depression across 18 primary care clinics across the US. They were assigned to either usual care or enhanced care for depression consisting of antidepressant medication and psychotherapy. Those receiving enhanced care were found to have lower scores for pain intensity and higher levels of functional ability. Since arthritis cannot be cured, nor can its pain and disability be entirely eliminated, it is important to tackle any issues, like depression, that make the condition worse. This study shows that treating depression in the context of arthritis is well worthwhile.
Fatal error
: Allowed memory size of 134217728 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 79 bytes) in
/home/jteleama/public_html/wp-includes/wp-db.php
on line
1551
