More commonly known as depression, major depressive disorder has been constituting one of the leading causes of disability worldwide. Though depression patients have always existed throughout society, their unprecedented increase in the 21st century brought worldwide concern. Adolescent depression has especially caught people’s attention, as the National Institute of Mental Health reported that the group of adolescents portrays the highest depression rate among all different age groups, as about 20% of the current adolescents are diagnosed with depression (“Major Depression”). Because adolescents are in the process of developing personality and cognitive skills, depression may hinder these developments and consequently result in a longer aftereffect: more than 50% of adolescents diagnosed with depression continue to experience major depression into adulthood (Guarin). Because of its effect on both the long term and short term of adolescent’s life, finding the most appropriate treatment for adolescent depression in the initial process before it gets further deteriorated remains urgent. Though common ways of treating adolescent depression include medication or psychotherapy, sports therapy has been most recently chosen as the plausible solution. Though there are controversial notions about sports therapy as it is a new method, sports therapy should be the first and foremost treatment for adolescent depression patients, because of its high efficacy, and accessibility.
Many people who believe sports therapy should not be the most prominent treatment for adolescent depression often suggest a more common and historic method, which is medication and psychotherapy. People who advocate for the usage of depression medication claims that medication has a more visible effect when its efficacy is compared with the control group of a placebo, a pharmaceutically active chemical substance that doesn’t have specific effects for easing the conditions that are being treated. Using this method, the pediatric psychiatrist Graham J Emslie claimed that among 95 US adolescent depression patients who participated in the experiment, medication-treated adolescents after one week met the criteria of remission, or the state of decreasing or disappearance in signs of symptom, twice more than adolescent patients who participated in sports or exercises for the same period of treatment. Moreover, people who advocate for psychotherapy as a better treatment than sports therapy stated that because many adolescent depression patients are reluctant to go outside or move bodies, psychotherapy, which focuses on the mindset change, would be better for them to have access. Therefore, the opposing views have been consistently arguing that sports therapy is not the best treatment because the medication is better in terms of efficacy, and psychotherapy is better in terms of accessibility.
However, a negative perspective toward medication exists, for medication inevitably accompanies adverse side effects. Issues regarding side effects should be substantially concerned because these side effects are much more apparent for adolescents compared to adults. To be specific, while medication eases the depressed state by boosting the secretion of serotonin, or the chemical substance that regulates feelings and moods, its process simultaneously blocks the other hormone that manages levels of sodium in the body. according to Susan Jacob, the pediatric doctor in Texas Children’s Hospital. She claims that the decreased level of sodium in adolescent’s bodies due to the intake of medication may result in insomnia, confusion, and diarrhea, making adolescents difficult to normally function in society. Hence, though the effect of medication may be advantageous enough for treating adults, extreme side effects that are present in adolescents outweighs the positive implication, making it difficult to be considered as having high efficacy for treating adolescent depression patients. In terms of accessibility, psychotherapy is also not the best solution because many adolescents find difficult to meet psychotherapist. US magazine “Psychotherapy Networkers” claims that this is because there are some disparities of thoughts and beliefs between psychotherapists and adolescent patients, due to the lack of psychotherapists’ understanding of adolescent culture and language.
Thanks to the physical therapists’ attempt, many different kinds of sports from the form of competition that involve lots of players to simple individual exercises have been recommended for adolescent depression patients. According to B.N. Gangadhar, the researcher at the sports therapy center, sports therapy is a much better solution than the medication because it doesn’t have adverse side effects, and because of its efficacy itself. He stated that patients who took medication scored much worse in terms of depression severity compared to the patients who took sports therapy when it is both applied to the adolescents. Even compared with psychotherapy, since sport’s main focus is not direct communication between therapist and patient when it's used as a treatment, the ideal disparity doesn’t affect the progress of the exercise. This allows adolescents tend to feel more comfortable having sports therapy, which can stimulate them to access the treatment more often. Consequently, adolescents treated with sports therapy portrayed a longer duration of treatment effect with more than 12 months, while the effect of psychotherapy only lasted for 3 months (Craft).
To sum up, though some researches substantiate the effect of medication and psychotherapy to some extent, they both have limitations. In this sense, sports therapy should be considered as the best solution because of its efficacy, and accessibility. To let adolescents have the opportunity for sports therapy, implementing sports therapy as a special class in a regular physical education course seems plausible. Because sports therapy not just treats depression but also good for preventing future depression, integrating it into physical education will allow a good opportunity for all students. Moreover, because sports therapy does not need specialized facilities or high scientific development, its efficacy and accessibility would be applied in any school and place.
Reference
1) Craft, Lynette L., and Frank M. Perna. “The Benefits of Exercise for the Clinically Depressed.” The Primary Care Companion to The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, vol. 06, no. 03, 2004, pp. 104–111., doi:10.4088/pcc.v06n0301.
2) Emslie, GrahamJ., et al. “Fluoxetine for Acute Treatment of Depression in Children and Adolescents: A Placebo-Controlled, Randomized Clinical Trial.” Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, vol. 41, no. 10, Oct. 2002, pp. 1205–1215., doi:10.1097/00004583-200210000-00010.
3) Gangadhar, BN, et al. “Positive Antidepressant Effects of Generic Yoga in Depressive out Patients: A Comparative Study.” Indian Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 55, no. 7, July 2013, pp. 369–373., doi:10.4103/0019-5545.116312.
4) Guarin, Jhon. “The Effect of Team Sports On Mental Health In Adolescents.” Digital Commons @Brockport, 2018, digitalcommons.brockport.edu/pes_synthesis/61/.
5) Jacob, Susan, and Sarah A Spinier. “Hyponatremia Associated with Selective Serotonin-Reuptake Inhibitors in Older Adults.” Annals of Pharmacotherapy, vol. 40, no. 9, Sept. 2006, pp. 1618–1622., doi:10.1345/aph.1g293.
6)
“Major Depression.” National Institute of Mental Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Feb. 2019, www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/major-depression.shtml.
Writer: Yeyoung Jeon
Comments