Centre for Policy on Ageing



The treatment of psychotic depression in later life — a comparison of pharmacotherapy and ECT
Author(s)	Alastair Flint, Sandra L Rifat
Journal title	International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, vol 13, no 1, January 1998
Pages	pp 23-28
Keywords	Depression ; Drugs ; Psychiatric treatment ; Canada.
Annotation	This Canadian study evaluated the response to pharmacotherapy and to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in older patients with psychotic depression. Twenty-five patients aged 60 years and older with major depression were treated with either 6 weeks of pharmacotherapy or ECT. The study found that older patients with psychotic depression had a significantly lower frequency of response to pharmacotherapy than to ECT. However, patients responded more slowly to pharmacotherapy than to ECT and longer duration of treatment may have improved the outcome of the medication group. The findings suggest the need for a randomised controlled trial comparing the efficacies of drug treatment and ECT in late life psychotic depression. (AKM).
Accession Number	CPA-980312410 A
Classmark	ENR: LLD: LP: 7S
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.