preview

Depression Treatment Plan Essay

Decent Essays

One way to solve the problem is to revise depression treatment plans by implementing programs to address important lifestyle factors in treatment and updating health education in public high schools. First, this revised depression treatment plan will involve an exercise program and food journal, to keep patients focused on the two most important lifestyle factors of physical activity and diet. All mental health service buildings should have a room refurbished for exercise purposes, filled with treadmills for patients’ physical activity. Patients will be expected to perform 30 minutes of physical activity at a time, twice a week, for a minimum treatment period of four months (or 16 weeks). To ensure that patients actually commit to their physical …show more content…

An exercise-based approach to depression treatment should show a large remission rate, of about 40% of patients, after just 16 weeks of physical activity (Blumenthal et al., 2007, p. 8). Along with this, in a study by Blumenthal et al. (2007) published in Psychosomatic Medicine, some study participants experienced a 50% reduction in depression symptoms after just the first week of treatment through physical activity (p. 9). So, in some cases this treatment may be extremely quick in producing results and otherwise will still be effective after just four …show more content…

Long-term treatment becomes practical, because patients do not have to depend entirely on their health care providers to maintain the behaviors learned in treatment. Patients can continue to exercise and eat healthy even without being in therapy, and will surely feel more comfortable doing so after committing to these for four months of treatment. Long-lasting treatment is necessary in those cases of depression that cannot seem to achieve full remission and therefore need lifelong maintenance of treatment. Once a person starts to actually feel better, and connects that progress to treatment, they most likely will not want to go back to their old habits in which they felt worse. In addition, this solution is natural and familiar due to its involvement of basic health concepts like exercising, eating healthy, going outside, or being social, but interesting because it makes a unique connection between mental health and lifestyle factors usually taken for

Get Access