Avoid Detours and Stay on the Road to Recovery
Understanding the long-term treatment of depression requires familiarity with the six “R’s” – recognition, response, remission, recovery, relapse, and recurrence.
First, let’s get our terms straight. Recognition is the first step on the road to recovery. You and your doctor have already successfully taken this step with the diagnosis of your depression and the start of treatment for this disease. Response is the next step and describes that stage when you begin to notice the depressive symptoms improve. Remission is the term for complete relief of your symptoms. Recovery is the absence of symptoms, connected with depression for a substantial length of time. Doctors define a relapse as the return of symptoms prior to full recovery. And they define a recurrence as a new episode of depression after recovering from an earlier one. These six “R’s” are treated in three phases – acute, continuation and maintenance.
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