Are Mood Stabilizers Or Antipsychotic Medications Helpful For Treating Depression?

— -- Question: Are mood stabilizers or antipsychotic medications helpful for treating depression?

Answer: Yes. Mood stabilizers and antipsychotic medications are used to treat depression in adults -- particularly the depressed phase of bipolar disorder. These are people who have swings into mania as well as swings into depression, and the mood stabilizers and antipsychotic medications are used frequently for that.

Mood stabilizers such as lithium carbonate, and with the antipsychotic medications, what is usually done is to use the newer atypical antipsychotic medications.

Now for people who just suffer from depression or what is sometimes called unipolar depression, mood stabilizers and atypical antipsychotic medications are sometimes used as augmentations strategies

In other words, to add a medication to an antidepressant that's only partially working. And lithium carbonate, again, would be one of the medications that is commonly used, as well as some of the atypical antipsychotic medications.

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