[Concomitant depression and its treatment].

Accompanying depression is especially common in elderly, chronically ill patients and rehabilitation patients, where a physical illness and/or disablement is accompanied by depression. Treatment should always be focussed in a "polypragmatic" manner on both physical or psychic symptoms. In particular psychotherapy (see article by Barolin), pharmacotherapy (referred to in this article) and physiotherapy (described further in other literature) are of importance here. Advantage is to be taken of the polar dimensions of different types of antidepressant drugs, namely the increase in drive or sedating effects. However, the increased rate of side effects from some drugs among elderly patients is not to be ignored. Taking the above into consideration, the new antidepressant, Fluctine (Fluoxetine), has proved to be effective among our randomly selected patients. This is on account of its relatively fast onset of action, minimal side effects and its slight increase in drive. The group of non-responders (one third of the patients) showed no decrease in depressive symptoms when other antidepressants were substituted. As expected those patients suffering organic-brain illness responded worse and represent a large percentage of the non-responders. These data prove the results of previous findings that patients with organic-brain illness generally respond worse to antidepressant medication. Thus Fluctine can be recommended for elderly patients with accompanying depression.