According to data, more than 14 million people in the United States suffer from SAD that includes around 1.5% of the population in southern states such as Florida and more than 9% of the population in the northern areas of the US. A second group spent six weeks receiving cognitive-behavioural therapy during two 50-minute sessions per week.
Advertisement
“I take this, to me, evidence of the durability of cognitive behavioral therapy treatment”, Rohan said.
Lead author Kelly Rohan, a professor of psychology at the University of Vermont, said that CBT teaches patients a set of preventive skills they can use whenever, while light-therapy requires a daily dependency on the light in order for it to work. He says light therapy is still the preferred treatment method for someone with SAD, along with eating right, exercising and possibly antidepressants.
Lorber said that the American Psychiatric Association now recommends “light therapy” – timed, daily exposure to bright artificial light – as the treatment of choice for SAD.
The study also stated that an estimated percentage of nearly 10-20% of all the registered cases of SAD are cases of recurrent depression that follow a seasonal pattern. Even after researchers ruled out the possible effects of other treatments the patients tried in the meantime, the CBT group was still way ahead of the light-therapy group. Though SAD is a condition that comes from the environment, it might be more helpful to patients to focus their treatment on the “depression” part rather than the “seasonal”.
The talk therapy was cognitive behavioral therapy, a treatment approach that taught people to challenge negative thoughts about dark winter months and to avoid behaviors, such as social isolation, that can harm mood.
Previous research by Professor Rohan published in the American Journal of Psychiatry in September showed both light therapy and CBT were both highly effective in treating SAD during the first winter for six weeks.
Among the CBT group, 27.3 percent of patients had a depression comeback the second winter, whereas 45.6 percent of those who underwent light therapy.
One reason could be that light therapy may be too burdensome, as the researchers report only 30 percent of the light therapy subjects were still treating themselves.
In the first winter after the initial treatment, both groups reported comparable relief from seasonal depression.
Advertisement
But it seems that carrying out the daily light box routine was hard for numerous subjects – making CBT the better treatment over the long term. Fisher adds the best way to help someone who may be showing symptoms of SAD or any type of depression is to let them know what you’re seeing and encourage them to see their doctor. Moreover, around this time, only 30% of the light therapy group continued using the light box.
