Massage and relaxation therapies' effects on depressed adolescent mothers. Controlled trial of a brief cognitive-behavioural intervention in adolescent patients with depressive disorders. A comparison of cognitive-behavioral therapy and relaxation training for the treatment of depression in adolescents. Massage therapy effects on depressed pregnant women. Combined pharmacological and behavioural treatment of depression. The antidepressant effect of light in seasonal affective disorder of childhood and adolescence. Cognitive behavior therapy, relaxation training, and tricyclic antidepressant medication in the treatment of depression. Clinical depression: comparative efficacy of outpatient treatments. Treatment of depressed in-patients. Cognitive therapy plus medication, relaxation plus medication, and medication alone. Influence of aerobic exercise on depression.
Thirty-two depressed adolescent mothers received ten 30-minute sessions of massage therapy or relaxation therapy over a five-week period. Subjects were randomly assigned to each group. Although both groups reported lower anxiety following their first and last therapy sessions, only the massage therapy group showed behavioral and stress hormone changes including a decrease in anxious behavior, pulse, and salivary cortisol levels. A decrease in urine cortisol levels suggested lower stress following the five-week period for the massage therapy group. Fifty-three child and adolescent psychiatric patients with depressive disorders were randomly allocated to brief cognitive-behaviour therapy (CBT) or to a control treatment, relaxation training. Forty-eight patients completed the treatment phase of the trial, which comprised 5-8 treatment sessions. Post-treatment assessments showed a clear advantage of CBT over relaxation on measures of both depression and overall outcome. However, there were no significant differences between the treatments on comorbid anxiety and conduct symptoms. At follow-up, the differences between the groups were reduced, partly because of a high relapse rate in the DTP group and partly because subjects in the relaxation group continued to recover. nan Eighty-four depressed pregnant women were recruited during the second trimester of pregnancy and randomly assigned to a massage therapy group, a progressive muscle relaxation group or a control group that received standard prenatal care alone. These groups were compared to each other and to a non-depressed group at the end of pregnancy. The massage therapy group participants received two 20 min therapy sessions by their significant others each week for 16 weeks of pregnancy, starting during the second trimester. The relaxation group provided themselves with progressive muscle relaxation sessions on the same time schedule. Immediately after the massage therapy sessions on the first and last days of the 16-week period the women reported lower levels of anxiety and depressed mood and less leg and back pain. By the end of the study the massage group had higher dopamine and serotonin levels and lower levels of cortisol and norepinephrine. These changes may have contributed to the reduced fetal activity and the better neonatal outcome for the massage group (i.e. lesser incidence of prematurity and low birthweight), as well as their better performance on the Brazelton Neonatal Behavior Assessment. The data suggest that depressed pregnant women and their offspring can benefit from massage therapy. nan nan Outcomes of seven treatment trials comparing cognitive behavioral therapy to treatment with tricyclic antidepressant medication in major depressive disorder have been quite similar to one another. This led us to question whether treatment outcome in time-limited studies reflected a unique effect of cognitive behavioral therapy. To test the uniqueness hypothesis, relaxation training, a nonpharmacologic, noncognitive treatment, was chosen as a comparison for cognitive behavioral therapy as well as drug therapy. Treatment duration was 16 weeks. The sample of 37 patients treated for major depressive disorder was less depressed than those previously studied. For both cognitive behavioral therapy and relaxation training, outcome of depression was superior to that of tricyclic antidepressant medication by endpoint analysis. The posttreatment scores on the Beck Depression Inventory of 82% of the group receiving cognitive behavioral therapy improved to a Beck Depression Inventory score < or = 9 which was not significantly greater than that for the group receiving relaxation training (73%), so a unique effect was not demonstrated for cognitive behavioral therapy. The outcome for tricyclic antidepressant medication (29% improved to criteria) was significantly worse than that for cognitive behavioral therapy. The patient's pretreatment initial expectancy was not predictive. nan Thirty in-patients received one of three treatments - medication (nortriptyline) alone (MA), relaxation therapy plus medication (RT&M), or cognitive therapy plus medication (CT&M) (each n = 10) - along with ward milieu. The relaxation and cognitive therapy groups participated in 12 therapy sessions. Symptoms of depression and related cognitive variables were assessed at sessions 1, 6 and 12, and at discharge. All groups improved over the course of the study. CT&M and RT&M groups reported significantly fewer depressive symptoms and negative cognitions at discharge than the MA group. The number of subjects judged depressed at discharge was lower in the CT&M group than in the MA and RT&M groups. It is proposed that a consistent rationale for treatment is a significant facilitating factor in achieving behavioural and cognitive changes in depression. Forty-three depressed women were randomly assigned to either (a) an aerobic exercise treatment condition in which they participated in strenuous exercise, (b) a placebo treatment condition in which they practiced relaxation exercises, or (c) a no-treatment condition. Aerobic capacity was assessed before and after the 10-week treatment period. Self-reported depression was assessed before, during, and after the treatment period. The results indicated that subjects in the aerobic exercise condition evidenced reliably greater improvements in aerobic capacity than did the subjects in either of the other conditions (p less than .002 in both cases) and that the subjects in the aerobic exercise condition evidenced reliably greater decreases in depression than did subjects in the placebo condition (p = .05) or subjects in the no-treatment condition (p = .001). These results provide the first controlled evidence concerning the effects of strenuous exercise on depression.
Relaxation techniques were more effective at reducing self-rated depressive symptoms than no or minimal treatment. However, they were not as effective as psychological treatment. Data on clinician-rated depressive symptoms were less conclusive. Further research is required to investigate the possibility of relaxation being used as a first-line treatment in a stepped care approach to managing depression, especially in younger populations and populations with subthreshold or first episodes of depression.