OBJECTIVES To show why and how the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression became the 'Gold Standard' for assessing therapies from the mid-1960s and how it was used to frame depression as a short-term and curable illness rather than a chronic one. METHODS My approach is that of the social construction of knowledge, identifying the interests, institutional contexts and practices that produce know...

selective estrogen receptor modulators (serms) such as raloxifene have already shown beneficial effects on negative, positive and general psychopathology symptoms in postmenopausal women with schizophrenia. the purpose of the present investigation was to assess the efficacy of raloxifene as an adjuvant agent in the treatment of men with chronic schizophrenia in an 8-week double-blind and placeb...

The Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (often abbreviated to HRSD, HDRS or Ham-D) was written in the late 1950s by Max Hamilton, a psychiatrist at Leeds University and originally designed to evaluate the performance of the first group of antidepressants [1]. The scale is still widely used to measure the effectiveness of antidepressant medication in clinical trials. For more than 40 years, it ...

 Background: Frozen shoulder is resulting in limb disability and reduction of quality of life but the factors associated with patients’ disability and quality of life is not clear. To assess pain, disability, the quality of life and factors associated with them in patients suffering from frozen shoulder.  Methods: We enrolled 120 patients (37 men and 83 women) with phase-II idiopathic frozen sh...

background: frozen shoulder is resulting in limb disability and reduction of quality of life but the factors associated with patients’ disability and quality of life is not clear. to assess pain, disability, the quality of life and factors associated with them in patients suffering from frozen shoulder.  methods: we enrolled 120 patients (37 men and 83 women) with phase-ii idiopathic frozen sho...

Background We aimed to compare the degree of symptom relief to psychosocial functional (abbreviated as "functional") improvement and explore the relationships between symptom relief and functional improvement during acute electroconvulsive therapy for patients with major depressive disorder. Methods Major depressive disorder inpatients (n=130) requiring electroconvulsive therapy were recruite...

Background The burden of major depressive disorder includes suffering due to symptom severity, functional impairment, and quality of life deficits. The aim of this study was to compare the differences between electroconvulsive therapy and pharmacotherapy in reducing such burdens. Methods This was a pooled analysis study including 2 open-label trials for major depressive disorder inpatients re...

OBJECTIVE We evaluated the efficacy and side effects of the selective serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor antidepressant duloxetine in older adults with dysthymic disorder. METHODS Patients ≥ 60 years old with dysthymic disorder received flexible dose duloxetine 20-120 mg daily in an open-label 12-week trial. The main outcomes were change from baseline to 12 weeks in 24-item Hamil...

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is effective in treatment-resistant depression (TRD). It may act through intracellular process modulation, but its exact mechanism is still unknown. Animal research supports a neurotrophic effect for ECT. We aimed to investigate the association between changes in serum brain-derived neurotrophic factor (sBDNF) levels and clinical improvement following ECT in pati...