Light Therapy For Depression
It could be just historical 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 dependence on drugs in the future. But it needs a strenuous clinical research effort to establish the efficacy of new applications - consider that it took 15 years for the classic trials of intense light treatment to come to completion.
Studies of light therapy for depression have not been proscribed to depression.
There’s promising proof that it might be efficacious in non seasonal depression also. A joint trial at Columbia college Medical Center and Wesleyan school implies that patients with persistent depression - who have experienced nearly no relief in years - answer as well to light treatment 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 suppressant drug trials, and found the improvement rates to be similar. One significant difference is that light appears to work within one week, while medicines may take up to eight weeks to match the efficiency of light. Curiously light used with medication looks 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, concentrating 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 appear to reduce the physical prospects of “premenstrual tension.” Many women have employed the care for almost two years, with maintained positive answer. While a perfect dosing regimen still should be determined, light care stands as a choice particularly for girls who have not replied to drugs for PMS, or who’ve been worried by medication complications and deserted treatment because of this.
