"Engage" therapy: Prediction of change of late-life major depression.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

Engage grew out of the need for streamlined psychotherapies that can be accurately used by community therapists in late-life depression. Engage was based on the view that dysfunction of reward networks is the principal mechanism mediating depressive symptoms. Accordingly, Engage uses "reward exposure" (exposure to meaningful activities) and assumes that repeated activation of reward networks will normalize these systems. This study examined whether change in a behavioral activation scale, an index of reward system function, predicts change in depressive symptomatology.

Methods

The participants (N = 48) were older adults with major depression treated with 9 weekly sessions of Engage and assessed 27 weeks after treatment. Depression was assessed with the 24-item Hami

SUBMITTER: Alexopoulos GS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5564217 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature