ACUPUNCTURE TREATMENT FOR UNIPOLAR DEPRESSION

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Severe depression is an unfortunately common condition, especially among women, and one which for many persons have sought alternative treatments. This may reflect that for many persons depression is a chronic or episodic rather than an acute condition, one for which conventional treatments fail to provide full or lasting remission. The efficacy of the alternative treatments that persons seek for the symptoms of depression has not been empirically assessed. This proposal presents a preliminary, yet controlled, study to test the efficacy of acupuncture as a treatment for unipolar depression in women. This interdisciplinary collaborative project involves the principal collaboration between a faculty member from the psychology department at the University of Arizona and the Director of and acupuncturist for the Kwan Yin Center for the Healing Arts. Additional collaborators include another faculty member from the department of psychology, a medical doctor affiliated with the University of Arizona Medical Center, and four local acupuncturists who will serve as consultants. The project involves assessing depression from the perspectives of both Western and Chinese medicine, and developing treatment plans according to the principles of Chinese medicine that accommodate each individual's specific pattern of disharmony. Additionally, these individually-tailored treatments will consider the phase of the menstrual cycle as an important determinant of the selected treatment points. The main objective of the study is to determine if the efficacy of acupuncture as a treatment depression is substantial enough to warrant a large-scale clinical trial. Specifically, there are four objectives: a) to evaluate the efficacy as well as the clinical significance of acupuncture as a treatment for symptoms of unipolar depression; b) to evaluate the comparative efficacy of individually- tailored acupuncture treatments relative to treatment using a set of points nonspecific to depression and relative to a wait-list control group; c) to assess stability of or changes in electroencephalographic asymmetries as a function of treatment; and d) to compare Western and Chinese medicine-based diagnostic procedures to identify those patterns of disharmony that are subsumed under the diagnosis of unipolar depression.