Effectiveness of Exercise vs. Medication in the Treatment of Depression Essay

Introduction

Though clinical medicine remains the primary form of mental health treatment, people are increasingly making advances towards multiple forms of non-pharmacologic treatments. These include methods of treatment such as complementary and medical therapies. Complementary and medical (CAM) therapies include exercise, massage therapy and acupuncture among others. As a form of clinical intervention, exercise promotes an individual's mental health by reducing anxiety, enhancing the circulation of blood, and rehabilitation of injuries such as spinal cord injuries. Thus, this essay discusses research methodologies as captured in two main articles focusing on the treatment of depressive disorders. Evidence-based practices in the treatment of depression disorders make it necessary to use different research methodologies in a bid to compare the effectiveness of exercise and medication.

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Depression

The pathophysiology of major depressive disorders presumes manifestation of various symptoms. The symptoms include a depressed mood characterized by lowered self-esteem, significant changes in weight, anhedonia or lack of enthusiasm in life, and recurrent suicidal tendencies (Adams et al., 2015). Other symptoms include psychomotor agitation, fatigue, indecisiveness, and extreme patterns of sleep such as insomnia. In the major depressive disorders, the symptoms are primarily severe. It is important to note that major depressive disorders can be viewed either as clinical diseases or psychological issues.

The etiology of depression evinces multiple causes. One of the explanations is that an imbalance of neurotransmitters triggers a major depressive disorder. Here, synaptic transmission, a deficiency or an excess of neurotransmitters affect synaptic communications in the body. The resultant neurotransmitter concentrations affect synaptic responses in the brain leading to the creation of depressive conditions in the body. Also, inflammation associated with pre-existing conditions such as cancer, diabetes or cardiovascular diseases may lead to major depressive disorders. The heightened levels of glucocorticoids catalyze the secretion of cytokines. Cytokines lead to inflammation thus affecting neural functions and eventually causing major depressive disorders. Genetic factors may also lead to major depressive disorders. Against this genetic view, major depressive disorders are hereditary. Therefore, an individual whose parents suffered from major depressive disorders is predisposed to depression. However, the etiology of major depressive disorders does not follow the Mendelian pattern. Therefore, exposure to stress factors catalyzes the development of major depressive disorders.

Evidence-based Approach

Netz's paper adopts a qualitative research framework in the sense that it conducts a content review of published articles on the use of exercise to treat medication. The articles are collected depending on whether they were randomization trials or systemic reviews. The reviews are a pointer that the study is qualitative. Netz (2017) leverages the qualitative approach to collect current information on exercise as a form of treatment. After that, the paper synthesizes the collected information into a composite model that provides an evidence-based justification for the integration of exercise in the treatment of depressive disorders (Cantrell, 2011). From the analysis, Netz observes that exercise may either be used as a stand-alone treatment or integrated with other forms of treatment. This observation resonates with another quantitative study where Adams et al. (2015) conducted randomized controlled trials that proved that physical activity lowers depression and associated anxiety.

Although contemporary research seems to suggest that exercise can promote the treatment of depression, it is essential to note that some of the articles included in the review by Netz rejected exercise treatment and expressly called for the use of anti-depressants. Here, the qualitative study may suffer from its reliance on secondary data (Polit & Beck, 2017). Nonetheless, a qualitative content analysis contributes to the replication and validation of findings by reviewing and synthesizing existing information (Schultz, Rivers, & Ratusnik, 2008). On the other hand, the use of experiments in quantitative research effectively establishes a correlation between the variables under study. As a result, quantitative studies are more reliable because of the replicability of findings.

Depressive disorders attract a raft of treatment interventions with mental health practitioners preferring some treatment interventions to others. While some mental health professionals prefer medication-based treatments, others prefer exercise (Netz, 2017). Of note, some of the patients diagnosed with major depressive disorders react negatively to pharmacological treatment. The non-pharmacological nature of the exercise is desirable because patients are exempt from the chemical components of pharmacological medication that reacts negatively to the patients. While pharmacological antidepressants are mainly designed to treat the symptoms of depression, complementary and medical therapies may alleviate both the causes of depression and the symptoms of depression.

Although there is a correlation between depression and physical activities, the effectiveness of exercise in the treatment of depressive disorders requires its integration with medication. This essay has illustrated that both antidepressants and exercise contribute to the alleviation of depression. At the same time, there is a need for more research on the best combination of antidepressants and exercise to optimize the effectiveness of any treatment regimes. Overall, medication is more effective than exercise and exercise has to be integrated with medication in the treatment of depression.

References

Adams, D. J., Remick, R. A., Davis, J. C., Vazirian, S., & Khan, K. M. (2015). Exercise as medicine-the use of group medical visits to promote physical activity and treat chronic moderate depression: a preliminary 14-week pre-post study. BMJ open sport & exercise medicine, 1(1), e000036.

Cantrell, M. A. (2011). Demystifying the research process: Understanding a descriptive comparative research design. Pediatric Nursing, 37(4), 188-189.

Netz, Y. (2017). Is the comparison between exercise and pharmacologic treatment of depression in the clinical practice guideline of the American college of physicians evidence-based?. Frontiers in pharmacology, 8, 257.

Polit, D. F., & Beck, C. T. (2017). Nursing research: Generating and assessing evidence for nursing practice (10th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Wolters Kluwer.

Schultz, L. E., Rivers, K. O., & Ratusnik, D. L. (2008). The role of external validity in evidence-based practice for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation Psychology, 53(3), 294-302.