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KMID : 1151920200020020057
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Chronobiology in Medicine
2020 Volume.2 No. 2 p.57 ~ p.60
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The Light of Hope in Antidepressant Strategies
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Geoffroy Pierre A.
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Abstract
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Light therapy (LT) is both an old and a new treatment because of major new insights and evidence that have been accumulated over last decades. LT shows efficacy as a first-line monotherapy in treating seasonal and non-seasonal depression, for both unipolar and bipolar disorders. LT can be used as an add-on/augmentation strategy and increases the response to antidepressant drugs (AD), but recent findings confirmed also the need to change practices and recommend a first-line combination treatment in order to maximize patients’ response rates, as a clear superiority of the combination exist compared with antidepressants alone. LT has the advantage of being also effective in improving both sleep, alertness and circadian rhythms, which may be altered in depression, contrary to AD that target mainly mood. LT effects are dependent on the light dose (determined by light irradiance level, duration of exposure, distance and angle from the light source), light color spectrum, and on the time of day of light exposure. Further research are warranted to determine the most efficient lighting parameters to use depending on depression characteristics, as well as identifying predictive biomarkers of response and tolerability.
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KEYWORD
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Phototherapy, Light therapy, Depression, Major depressive disorder, Bipolar disorders
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