The world of health care is always evolving. In mental health care, we’re always looking for new and improved ways to help people live happier and healthier lives. When it comes to treatments for mental health disorders like depression, there’s always research and development about new options for health care providers to recommend.
Depression can benefit from the two most common treatment options, antidepressants and psychotherapy. But in the last decade or so, there have been several new depression treatments developed. These new options have been used to alleviate the disorder symptoms and improve patients’ overall quality of life.
Read on to learn about the importance of treating depression symptoms. We’ll also discuss new depression treatment options that you may not be aware of.
The importance of depression treatment
Depression, or major depressive disorder, is a mood disorder that causes pervasive and persistent negative emotions and thoughts. This mental health disorder affects more than 14 million adults in the United States. It can interfere with your ability to carry out your daily responsibilities. It can also make it hard to form and maintain healthy personal connections with those around you.
The most common symptoms of depression include overwhelming feelings of sadness and hopelessness, lack of motivation, and loss of enjoyment in activities. Depression treatment can help manage these symptoms so that they can have less of a negative impact on your day-to-day life. Medication works to balance the chemicals in your brain that affect your moods. Psychotherapy, or talk therapy, helps you work through issues and thought processes contributing to your depression.
Millions of people across the U.S. have major depressive episodes, but only 39% of the affected population seeks proper treatment.
3 depression treatments worth exploring
Medication and psychotherapy are both broad types of depression treatment. Each has a variety of approaches that you can try. New depression treatments often refer to developments in depression medication and therapy. There are also new studies that show how certain lifestyle or diet changes can benefit symptoms.
Here are some new depression treatments that you can discuss with your mental health provider:
- Esketamine — One of the newest developments in depression medication is Spravato. It’s esketamine that’s administered through a nasal spray. Esketamine, a nasal spray augmentation, is a derivative of ketamine that’s meant to be taken alongside an oral antidepressant. It’s used to help treatment-resistant depression. If you haven’t responded positively to at least two trials of antidepressants, your symptoms may be labeled as treatment resistant.
- TMS — Another noninvasive depression treatment option is transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS. TMS involves targeting magnetic energy into the brain that stimulates the areas that are involved in mood regulation. It can be used to help people with treatment-resistant depression as well as anxious depression.
- Mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral therapy — A common psychotherapy approach for depression is cognitive behavioral therapy. This therapy focuses on how your thoughts, behaviors and emotions influence one another. Mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral therapy centers on reacting to negative thoughts instead of changing them. Combining cognitive behavioral techniques with mindfulness can help increase your awareness of negative thoughts. Increased awareness allows you to gain control over them.
Active Path Mental Health will help you determine what new depression treatments are right for you
There are many new depression treatments being discussed in the mental health space. It’s not always easy to determine which will be the most effective for your specific symptoms. At Active Path, we can walk you through your treatment options. Then we can assist you in determining the best course of action.
It’s OK if you haven’t heard of new depression treatments. We make sure to stay on top of new research so that we can provide the best care and support possible. We prescribe esketamine, administer TMS and offer short-term cognitive behavioral therapy.
Contact our team today for more information or to schedule an initial appointment.
