Talk Therapy Proves Effective for Terminal Cancer Patients

(HealthDay News) -- Talk therapy can help treat depression symptoms in patients with terminal cancer, according to Japanese researchers who reviewed the results of six studies that included a total of 517 patients with incurable cancer and depression.

The primary type of depression treatment for these patients was supportive expressive group therapy, in which they were encouraged to discuss their deepest fears and feelings and to help each other cope with them.

The review authors found that the benefits of this kind of treatment were only slightly less than those found in clinical trials of antidepressant drugs in general patient populations.

"Psychotherapy can be a promising treatment for ameliorating depressive states in advanced cancer patients if they prefer to receive it," said review lead author Tatsuo Akechi, an associate professor of psychiatry and cognitive-behavioral medicine at the Nagoya City University Graduate School of Medical Sciences.

However, Akechi and his colleagues found that psychotherapy did not significantly improve patient anxiety. This may be because there were too few patients to give enough statistical power to demonstrate an effect, Akechi suggested.

The researchers didn't examine whether psychotherapy could improve survival or response to cancer treatment. The review appears in the current issue of the journal The Cochrane Library.

"The key finding is that psychotherapy for depression for gravely ill cancer patients works," David Spiegel, associate chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine and an expert on therapy in cancer patients, said in a prepared statement. He wasn't involved in the review but was one of the lead investigators on one of the studies included in the review.

Spiegel said that many doctors don't look for depression in patients with advanced cancer, or they consider it a normal and untreatable response among dying patients. Spiegel noted that only about 25 percent of patients with terminal cancer suffer depression due to their situation, which is different than the grief, sadness and anger associated with the thought of dying.

"Depression and existential dread or sadness is not the same thing. Patients with depression feel hopeless, helpless and worthless. They feel like a burden to others," Spiegel said.

More information
The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more about depression.

Study Shows Anger Has Its Uses

(HealthDay News) -- People like to temper their emotions to the task at hand, and it can help them succeed, even if the emotions are not pleasurable ones, a new report suggests.

Individuals are motivated to increase their level of anger, for example, when they expect to complete a confrontational task in which anger might enhance performance, according to the study published in the April issue of Psychological Science. And reaching that frame of mind does seem to help.

Psychologists from Boston College and Stanford University told study participants that they would either play a computer game that is confrontational (a first-person shooter game where killing enemies is the primary goal) or one that is not confrontational (a game in which players guide a waitress serving customers). Participants then rated the extent to which they would like to engage in different activities before playing the game.

Participants preferred activities that were likely to make them angry (e.g., listening to anger-inducing music, recalling past events in which they were angry) when they expected to perform the confrontational task, researchers found. In contrast, participants preferred more pleasant activities when they expected to perform a non-confrontational task.

Angry participants proceeded to perform better than others in the confrontational game of killing enemy soldiers. However, they did not perform better than others in the non-confrontational game of serving customers.

"Such findings," the authors wrote, "demonstrate that what people prefer to feel at any given moment may depend, in part, on what they might get out of it."

More information
The National Crime Prevention Council has more about how to manage your anger.