Seasonal affective disorder is a common mood disorder. It’s also known as summer disorder or winter disorder. It’s possible to see SAD on the people with normal mental health in a specific season like winter, summer or autumn. According to health organizations, Seasonal affective disorder can give different symptoms in each patient but it’s mainly a big disorder. % 1.4 of all Americans are going to doctor for this problem and rate is changing according to state. For example In California, level is %9.7. Mood change can be serious in some patients and some people can live little mood changes. How many treatment ways for Seasonal affective disorder are there?
According to researches, most of the patients are facing the seasonal affective disorder in winter days. There are various ways for treating this disorder now. Some of them are cognitive-behavioral therapy, light therapy and medication. Also some new treatment ways use melatonin hormone.
The National Institute for Clinical Excellence is one of the biggest organizations working on the treatment ways of SAD. According to them, main treatment way of seasonal affective disorder is behaving the patients like they are in depression. This type of treatment includes talking treatments like cognitive behavioral therapy and drugs like antidepressants. Also The National Institute for Clinical Excellence recommends “light therapy” It’s true that light therapy is very new and it’s not possible to know the effects of it in the long term but according to researches, it has positive effect in short-time periods.
Most common way of seasonal disorder treatment is “psychosocial treatments.” On this treatment, doctors focus on both social aspects and psychological aspects of patients. There are two common psychosocial treatment ways of seasonal affective disorder in the world.
One of them is cognitive behavioral therapy. Main theme of this therapy believes that sources of all problems are patient directly. It means a season is not making the patients unhappy or taking them into disorder, they think they are in the bad mood in a particular season. Cognitive behavioral therapy tries to change the way patient think about the season and how it affects her. Therapy needs sessions with special trained therapists. Sessions last for weeks or months. There are many different programs of CBT based on patient’s situation.
Counseling and psychodynamic psychotherapy is another psychosocial treatment way using commonly. Therapy starts with patient’s talk about her problems and worries to trained therapist. This type of therapy believes that some old behaviors affect the behaviors of today and aims to find them.
Drugs are also very common to treat seasonal affective disorder. Especially antidepressants used to treat depression are common to use for treating seasonal affective disorder. Type of antidepressant preferred for treating SAD is Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors which are known as SSRIs. Their main work is increasing the serotonin level on brain and lifting the mood up back.
Main problem on using antidepressant is that most of the patients are not waiting for five or six weeks for the effect of drugs. Also most of the patients are not drinking more antidepressant when they feel good. Some antidepressants side effects or interactions with other drugs are also a big reason for patients who leave drugs.
There’s also a new type of therapy for treating SAD which is known as Light therapy. It’s mainly sitting in a specially built light for specific time. They are producing for only treating SAD so it’s vital to buy one from approved sellers of The SAD Association. It’s also important that bright light is not suitable for all patients of SAD.
