ABSTRACT
Depression is currently among the most treatable illnesses that we see in medicine. Similar to any other medical illness, depression should be treated to full remission and, ultimately, to recovery. Remission has now become the standard of treatment for treating individuals with major depression, and should be the goal of treatment for the patient who partially responds in the first episode, or the patient who may have failed to respond to multiple treatments. Unfortunately, up to 50% of patients who ‘‘respond’’ to their antidepressant treatment fail to fully ‘‘remit.’’ (1) Residual emotional or physical symptoms of depression jeopardize achieving remission for any individual patient and can also significantly increase the risk of relapse and recurrence (2). There are several possible consequences of failing to achieve remission, including higher rates of relapse and recurrence, continued psychosocial impairments, increased use of medical services, potential worsening of prognosis of any comorbid medical/psychiatric illnesses,
ongoing risk of suicide, and at least the theoretical possibility of the patient becoming ‘‘treatment resistant’’ (3,4).
