According to finding of a Dutch arbitrary experiment exposure to bright light can help in treating elderly patients suffering major depression. A team of psychiatrists and neuroscientists from several Netherlands Universities revealed that a new treatment known as bright light therapy can reduce the effects of depression in elderly.
The bright light therapy showed an important enhancement in mood and pattern of sleep in elderly having major depression. The researchers used specifically designed light boxes in the three weeks of bright light therapy to treat depressed patients. The research team led by Dr. Ritsaert Lieverse from VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, assessed the effects of bright light.
The team chose on ninety elderly participants, who were over the age of sixty and were diagnosed with MDD (major depressive disorder). All the participants were randomized to a three week exposure of bright light therapy or placebo exposure of dim light. Half of the participants were provided with bright blue light box and half were given dim light box.
After three weeks of treatment. It was found that bright light therapy improved depressive symptoms by forty-three percent in more than half of the sufferers who had completed the treatment. In contrast, the improvement was thirty-six percent in those who received placebo treatment. The team found that bright light therapy continuously improved the symptoms of depression.
These findings shore up insertion of chronotherapeutic approaches in the treatment alternatives for non-seasonal major depressive disorder in elderly patients. Bright light therapy can give a feasible option for patients who reject, oppose and do not bear antidepressant treatment, concluded the team. Bright light treatment also makes elderly patients to get out of bed earlier.