Can mild depression recur?

Written by Pang Ji Cheng
Psychiatry and Psychology
Updated on March 06, 2025
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Patients with mild depression also have the possibility of relapse. Clinical research investigations have found that systematic antidepressant treatment can lead to clinical recovery in 85% of patients. However, even with persistent and standardized treatment, nearly one-fifth of patients still experience relapse. This signifies that some patients may have a relapse rate exceeding 70% if they cease treatment. For those who recover, there is still a one-fifth chance of relapse within six months, and nearly half might relapse within two years after the initial episode. Therefore, relapse is a significant challenge for depression patients. Thus, treatment should be systematic and standard, including pharmacotherapy. Additionally, psychotherapy plays a crucial role in treating depression by improving patients' irrational cognitive patterns and adjusting their cognitive reconstruction systems, ultimately achieving a healed state.

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Written by Pang Ji Cheng
Psychiatry and Psychology
1min 7sec home-news-image

How is depression diagnosed?

The diagnosis of depression in clinical practice includes understanding the patient's clinical manifestations, conducting in-depth psychiatric examinations, scale measurements, and excluding auxiliary examinations related to depression. Clinically, it is important to fully understand the occurrence, development, progression, and treatment process of depression-related manifestations in patients. Additionally, psychiatric examinations focus on detailed assessments of the patients’ sensations, perceptions, consciousness, thinking, emotions, attention, memory, intelligence, and self-control, to further understand their overall psychological state. Scale measurements often involve self-assessment scales, depressive symptom self-rating scales or external assessment scales for comprehensive evaluation. Exclusion diagnostics primarily involve corresponding tests, such as thyroid examinations, to rule out physical diseases that may cause symptoms related to depression. After compiling all the information mentioned above, a definitive diagnosis of depression can be made.

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Written by Zhou Yan
Geriatrics
1min 27sec home-news-image

How to Cure Geriatric Depression

For geriatric depression, the treatment includes several aspects. Firstly, it is important to strengthen the patient's diet and nutrition supplementation. Secondly, certain psychological therapies should be provided to the depressed patients. The aim is mainly to alleviate or relieve symptoms, improve patients’ compliance with medication, prevent relapse, and reduce or eliminate the adverse consequences caused by the disease. The third aspect is to provide certain medication treatments, such as the currently used selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), and selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs). These types of medications have been widely used in patients with geriatric depression disorders. Among them, SSRIs are quite effective for geriatric depression disorders and can effectively counteract cholinergic and have milder adverse reactions on the cardiovascular system, making it easy for elderly patients to accept and maintain long-term treatment. The fourth aspect is the improvement of electroconvulsive therapy, which can significantly improve depression when combined with comprehensive treatment. However, since depression has a high recurrence rate, full-course treatment is recommended.

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Written by Pang Ji Cheng
Psychiatry and Psychology
1min 8sec home-news-image

What should I do about depression?

Once diagnosed with depression clinically, it is necessary to optimize and grade the treatment based on the severity of the patient's condition. Particularly for patients with moderate to severe depression, clinical doctors primarily consider pharmacotherapy, especially drugs that improve neurochemicals like serotonin and norepinephrine in the brain. The first-line medications recommended are serotonin reuptake inhibitors. In addition, during the medication process, it is important to ensure adequate dosage, full treatment duration, and systematic standardized treatment throughout the course of the disease. Additionally, in terms of psychological and physical therapies, cognitive-behavioral therapy is predominant in psychological treatment. It includes helping patients identify emotions, thoughts, behaviors, and effectively reconstructing systems to achieve therapeutic goals. For physical therapy options, repeated transcranial magnetic stimulation, light therapy, and electroconvulsive therapy can be considered. (Please follow professional medical advice for medication usage.)

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Written by Zhou Yan
Geriatrics
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How to treat geriatric depression effectively?

Elderly depression should be treated comprehensively. Firstly, it is important to enhance the diet and supplement nutrition. Secondly, through psychotherapy, mainly to alleviate or relieve symptoms, improve patients' compliance with drug treatment, and reduce or eliminate the adverse consequences of the disease. Thirdly, pharmacotherapy can involve the use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, selective serotonin, and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors, which are widely used in the treatment of elderly patients with depression. Fourth, modified electroconvulsive therapy is an option. Through the aforementioned comprehensive treatment, the clinical symptoms of depression can be improved. (Medication should be used under the guidance of a physician.)

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Written by Pang Ji Cheng
Psychiatry and Psychology
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What are the symptoms of depression?

The clinical manifestations of depression include core symptoms primarily characterized by low mood, reduced interest, and lack of emotion. Patients often display an inability to feel joy, experiencing a persistent sadness and a noticeable decrease in interest and pleasure in activities they previously enjoyed. The psychological symptoms are dominated by anxiety, slowed thinking, and cognitive symptoms, with patients exhibiting irritability, tension, worry, and often slow thought association, dull thinking, impaired short-term memory, reduced attention, and significantly diminished learning, comprehension, and judgment abilities. The physical symptoms include sleep disturbances, eating disorders, and loss of energy, with common issues like difficulty falling asleep, light sleep, early waking, poor appetite, weight loss, feeling listless, fatigue, and an overwhelming sense of exhaustion in their daily lives.