Adolescent pathways to depression: interventions, choice and treatments

There are few more urgent or controversial issues in mental healthcare than determining how to treat young people with adolescent depression. On 5 September Professor Ian Hickie , Director of the University of Sydney's Brain and Mind Research Institute , will outline the Institute's new clinical approach to treating adolescent depression in the next Sydney Medical School's public lecture series 21st Century Medicine - today's research, tomorrow's healthcare. How to get the help you need, decide which treatment provides the most benefit, if the treatments do more harm than good and how long treatment needs to continue? These are some of the questions commonly raised by young people affected by depression and their parents together with health professionals and the wider community. In recent years collaborative new research at the Brain and Mind Research Institute has made a significant contribution to providing better answers. "Our fundamental perspective combines a new approach to clinical practice known as 'clinical staging' using new technologies such as sleep and circadian rhythm assessments, brain imaging and neuropsychology, to characterise specific pathways to the onset and outcome of adolescent depression," said Professor Hickie. "This has led to the development of new studies that test whether clinical staging provides a more robust evidence base for answering those common clinical questions which are of greatest interest to young people and their families." Professor Ian Hickie is one of the most influential voices in the recognition and funding of mental health, especially in young people.