Can Telephone-Based Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Improve Depression in Parkinson Disease?

It seems so, and perhaps this new way of delivering CBT will overcome the traditional barriers against access.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is frequently helpful for depressed patients with Parkinson disease, but access to services can be difficult. To learn about the efficacy of a 10-session, telephone-delivered CBT intervention (weekly for 3 months and then monthly for another 6 months), researchers randomized 72 patients with Parkinson disease and depression diagnoses to the CBT intervention plus medical and psychiatric treatment as usual (TAU) or to TAU alone.

Telephone CBT+TAU was shown to be better than TAU alone on all depression, anxiety, and quality-of-life measures. On the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (the primary outcome measure), participants improved 6.53 points with telephone CBT+TAU versus a worsening of 0.27 points with TAU …

Reviewing Author

Michael S. Okun, MD

Disclosures

Consultant/Advisory BoardParkinson’s Foundation; Tourette Association of America

Speaker’s BureauMedscape/WebMD CME, Movement Disorders Society CME, American Academy of Neurology CME

RoyaltiesBooks4Patients; Demos; Cambridge; Taylor and Francis; Robert Rose; Public Affairs

Grant/Research SupportNational Institutes of Health; Parkinson’s Foundation; Tourette Association of America; University of Florida Foundation

Editorial BoardsTremor and Other Hyperkinetic Movements; JAMA Neurology

Leadership Positions in Professional SocietiesParkinson’s Foundation (Medical Advisor)