Abstracts from professional literature

SAD
PU DSMIV, 1994 Am. Psych. Assoc., 389-390.

TI "Mood Disorders, Seasonal Pattern Specifier"

SAD
TI Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders
SO Task Force Report of the American Psychiatric Association, 1989, Vol. 3; 1890-1896.
AB Light Therapy is a mainstream type of psychiatric treatment and is no longer considered experimental.

SAD
AU Rosenthal, N.E.
TI Diagnosis and Treatment of Seasonal Affective Disorder
SO JAMA, 1993; 270:2717-2720.
AB The diagnosis of SAD should be considered in all patients presenting with nonspecific complaints such as lethargy and fatigue, especially during the fall and winter months. The diagnosis is based on the patient's history; special investigations are invariably uninformative. Treatment with bright environmental light is generally a first-line therapeutic approach, but other treatments including antidepressants, stress management exercise, and psychotherapy may be useful too. Neither the etiology of sad nor the mechanism of the antidepressant effects of light are well understood, and both areas are the focus of ongoing research.

SAD & Sleep
AU Lewy, A.J.
TI Treating Chronobiologic Sleep and Mood Disorders with Bright Light.
SO Psychiatric Annals 17:10 October 1987. p 664-669.
AB One of the most promising nonpharmacological treatments of psychiatric disorders is bright light. The article discusses
how bright light and other factors affect human circadian rhythms. It supports the hypothesis that winter depression is the result of delayed circadian rhythms with respect to sleep. The article is followed by "Treatment Guidelines for Patients with Seasonal Affective Disorder."

Sleep Disorders, Night Work & Jet Lag
AU Czeisler, C.A. Johnson, M.P. Duffy, J.F. Brown, E.N. Ronda, J.M. Kronauer, R.E.
TI Exposure to Bright Light and Darkness to Treat Physiologic Maladaptation to Night Work
SO The New England Journal of Medicine 1990; 322:1253-9.
AB Working at night results in a misalignment between the sleep-wake cycle and the output of the hypothalamic pacemaker that regulates the circadian rhythms of certain physiologic and behavioral variables. We evaluated whether such physiologic maladaptation to nighttime work could be prevented effectively by a treatment regimen of exposure to bright light during the night and darkness during the day. We assessed the functioning of the circadian pacemaker in five control and five treatment studies in
order to assess the extent of adaptation in eight normal young men to a week of night work......We conclude that maladaptation of the human circadian system to night work, with its associated decline in alertness, performance, and quality of daytime sleep, can be treated effectively with scheduled exposure to bright light at night and darkness during the day. Author Abstract.

PMS
AU Parry, B.L. Berga, S.L. Mostofi, N. Sependa, P.A. Kripke, D.F. Gillin, J.C.
TI Morning Versus Evening Bright Light Treatment of (PMS) Late Luteal Phase Dysphoric Disorder.
SO American Journal of Psychiatry, September 1989; 146:1215-1217.
AB Six women with late luteal phase dysphoric disorder had a significant reduction in depression ratings after treatment with evening, but not morning, bright light. Bright light may offer an alternative to the pharmacologic treatment of premenstrual mood disorders.

SAD
AU Rosenthal, N.E.
TI Winter Blues
PU The Guildford Press, 1993.
AB Rosenthal's work is a must for all people with interests in seasonal depression. The work covers a vast variety of topics.