I cant’t be the only one who spent my teenage years shut in my room blaring The Smiths or Mazzy Star, sobbing. I got shit grades because I just didn’t care one way or the other if college ever happened. I know I could have benefited from a clinical screening for depression, and I’m sure it would have helped my mother in the process. But there’s good news on the horizon for Gen Z (that’s right, anyone under 18 is a post-millennial and a member of the Z generation). They stand to be the first served by routine depression screenings when just visiting the good ‘ole family doc for a regular checkup.
Don’t Judge a Book By Its Cover
The US Preventive Services Task Force came up with the recommendation for doctors to screen for depression at least once a year, spreading the news to primary care physicians, pediatricians and family doctors who treat patients between the ages of 12 and 18. In addition to asking a set of required questions that can help suss out whether the kid has fallen so far down in the dumps that they need medication or therapy, the doctors are urged to have systems ready to treat them if necessary. This might mean having a mental health practitioner in the office, or a referral system in place so the troubled youth can immediately get hooked up with proper care.
Dr. Gary Glaslow, an assistant professor of pediatrics and psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University, who coauthored an editorial on the recommendation, had this to say.
“The biggest challenge is identifying adolescents,” he told CNN. “They might look fine but without screening they fall through the cracks and don’t come to attention until the symptoms get worse. I think we have medications and therapies that are effective.”
Speaking of medications, people have long been freaked out about giving teens antidepressants like Prozac for fear of causing them to slit their wrists. Though suicidal ideation is a rare side effect (kind of like having liver failure when you take an antibiotic) no completed suicides have been documented, and the benefits from medication therapy have been statistically proven to outweigh the risks.
Follow Doctor’s Orders
Ultimately, suicide is a far higher risk for adolescents who don’t receive any treatment at all. According to a report put out by the CDC in 2015, 8% of high school students in the US tried to commit suicide in 2013, and 17% went on record saying they seriously contemplated it.
To treat these lows in adolescents, the doctors recommend both medication and therapy. “In 2009 the evidence of benefits was around therapy…so we were advocating therapy. Now we are saying it can be medication, therapy or a combination,” said Dr. Alex Krist, an associate professor of family medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University and member of the Task Force that wrote the recommendations.
“Suicide attempts and completed suicides are a concern with depression in adolescents and they were considered in the recommendations,” Krist said. The type of therapy suggested in these cases is, not surprisingly, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, which has also been proven through studies to be effective in treating addiction, and is often used in drug and alcohol treatment programs. As far as what meds to take, Lexapro has been proven to have therapeutic effects for adolescents between 12 to 17 years of age. I’ve had a long stint on Lexapro, and found it worked well with few side effects. The other drug approved for treatment of adolescents is Prozac.
Thanks For Having Our Backs
Starting at about age 15, had a physician asked me questions like “Do you feel hopeless” or “Do you have trouble concentrating” or “Do you overeat or under-eat, oversleep or under-sleep,” I probably would have been given some recs for therapy and medication. However, in my case, depression came across to my parents and teachers as anger, attitude and apathy. I exclusively did my sobbing in private. To the untrained eye, I may have looked like a typical grouchy teen, but had anyone asked the right questions or picked up my journal, they would have immediately realized I needed help.
So, this is a step in the right direction. Let’s just hope docs don’t go diagnosis-happy with the kids and put them all on meds.
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