PHYSIOLOGIC TREATMENT OF DEPRESSIVE REACTIONS: A PILOT STUDY
HOWARD D. KURLAND M.D.1
1 Chief, Psychiatric Service, Veterans Administration Research Hospital, Chicago, Ill.
No treatment has yet been devised that can cure all forms of depression or even all patients with any single type of depressive reaction. This pilot study revealed that prednisone was effective in ameliorating only the components of affective disorder in neurotic- and psychotic-depressives and in schizo-affectives. Because of the marked effects in every subject, the use of sequential statistics to analyze the clinical ratings of depression yielded evidence of improvement at the 99% level of confidence with only 4 cases in each of the 3 categories. Further clinical studies of larger populations and variable treatment combinations now appear warranted.
