Response to Macrina Severino C

Zuckerman, H., Pan, Z., Park, C., Brietzke, E., Musial, N., Shariq, A. S., … & McIntyre, R. S. (2018).

Recognition and treatment of cognitive dysfunction in major depressive

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Response to Macrina

Hello Macrina,

            Great post! Your discussion was insightful and engaging. I support your claims that failure to treat MDD rapidly and effectively may lead to cognitive impairments. Therefore, mental practitioners should be mandated to conduct comprehensive mental health assessments to promote accurate diagnosis. Early detection of MDD aids in devising intervention strategies as early as possible, thus promoting remission, preventing relapse, and reducing the financial and emotional burden of the condition on the patients, their families, and the community. Most mental health practitioners have historically applied the ‘start low and go slow’ approach in managing MDD (Zhang et al., 2022). For instance, some practitioners may initiate treatment for MDD and continue it for six to eight weeks before declaring that it has failed. However, current research asserts that MDD should be treated with greater urgency. As such, treating MDD patients without any urgency prolongs their suffering. Moreover, delaying appropriate treatment reduces the likelihood of asymptomatic remission and functional recovery. (MDD Treatment Discussion Post)

            Almeida et al. (2020) assert that around 50% of chronically ill patients may fail to adhere to medical directives regardless of the drug efficacy of latency. Thus, healthcare professionals should be aware that the psychological impacts of MDD lead to poor adherence. Effective multidisciplinary health teams are required to improve treatment adherence among MDD. Treatment compliance and tolerability should be assessed for the long term, starting with the first to last patient visit. In this case, psychologists and mental health practitioners should collaborate with other health care professionals to assist the patient in understanding their therapeutic roles and the potential side effects, thus improving their treatment compliance. Implementing treatment targeting different symptoms may promote compliance as patients note the benefits of the prescribed interventions easily. Of importance, personalized treatment approaches promote compliance to elicit better results through avoiding and managing complications.(MDD Treatment Discussion Post)