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Lithium Treatment in Post-psychotic Depression

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Daniel P. Van Kammen ,
Paul E. Alexander  and
William E. Bunney Jr.
Daniel P. Van Kammen
Affiliation:
Unit on Neuropsychopharmacology, Biological Psychiatry Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20014, USA
Paul E. Alexander
Affiliation:
Section on Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02906, USA
William E. Bunney Jr.
Affiliation:
Biological Psychiatry Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20014, USA
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Summary

Six of eleven drug-free schizophrenic patients who were depressed following remission of their illness showed a significant decrease in their depressive symptomatology during a double-blind, placebo substitution lithium trial. Traditional indicators of prognosis did not predict lithium response in this small sample; the schizophrenic patients tolerated the lithium well. Lithium should be studied further in a larger patient sample as an adjunct in the treatment of post-psychotic depression, which frequently is treatment resistant.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 136 , Issue 5 , May 1980 , pp. 479 - 485
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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