Chronic medical illness in patients with recurrent major depression

The authors treated 115 elderly patients (ambulatory and without dementia) with recurrent major depression, by means of combined nortriptyline and interpersonal psychotherapy. They contrasted Cumulative Illness Rating Scale-Geriatric (CIRS-G) scores (for medical burden) in recovered and nonrecovered patients and generated a Cox proportional-hazards model of time-to-remission. The authors found no association between pretreatment chronic medical burden and acute treatment outcome in recovered (83 of 115) and nonrecovered patients and no relation of pretreatment CIRS-G scores with time-to-recovery. Findings support recent recommendations that practitioners be optimistic in treating elderly depressed, ambulatory patients whether or not significant medical burden coexists.