The article highlights the importance of precision medicine in treating depression, emphasizing the inadequacy of a trial-and-error approach in selecting antidepressants. Chronic depression often leads to high relapse rates, making it essential to find effective medication quickly. Utilizing genetic testing can help identify the most suitable antidepressants for individual patients, enhancing treatment efficacy and accelerating recovery. The author compares psychiatric medication selection to oncological chemotherapy, underscoring the seriousness of treating depression with a tailored approach rather than a generalized one.
Imagine if I asked him what he would recommend as a good garden-variety chemotherapy drug for cancer? Chemotherapy decisions should be based on precise factors and can be a matter of life or death. The same is true in psychiatry.
Medication choices should never be cavalier. Yet I still get questions asking if I can prescribe a low dose of an antidepressant to take the edge off. Such minimization perpetuates the myth that depression can be treated non-specifically.
After three or more episodes, a person's risk of relapse can reach 90% without treatment. The gold standard for long-term maintenance treatment includes antidepressants, evidence-based therapies and healthy lifestyle choices, and can dramatically reduce recurrences.
Matching patients with the right medications early on cuts time wasted on trial and error, leading to faster recovery and boosting the overall effectiveness of treatment.
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