None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
Individuals living with treatment resistant depression are faced with an especially challenging road to recovery. The factors that complicate treatment include, lack of a universal definition on what treatment resistant depression is, poor doctor-patient relationship, inadequate knowledge about treatment options, patient /caregiver fatigue, and high cost associated with co-morbidities. Due to the nature of treatment resistant depression, a need to emotionally self-regulate amidst stress commonly arises in adults. This stress may range from activities of daily living (like bathing, taking medication, grocery shopping) to medical management (attending doctor’s appointment, corresponding with insurance providers etc.) and/or social engagements. Continuous exposure to such stress keeps one’s sympathetic nervous system charged and activated often resulting in a heightened state of alarm which further exasperates depressive symptoms. In this way, repeated exposure to stress is part of the lived experience in adults with treatment resistant depression. This graduate researcher believes that moving towards stability begins with an increased understanding and awareness about one’s automatic stress responses. Such knowledge can help foster and create a path where individuals living with treatment resistant depression can comfortably identify manage their stress. Current tools in depression treatment do not document the experience of learning and practicing somatic based stress management techniques after participating in group dance therapy sessions. This tool may be potentially helpful for both, adults living with TRD and their health practitioners in tracking symptoms of TRD. Based on this background, this research project is designed as to help understand if group dance therapy sessions may be helpful in alleviating stress associated with a treatment resistant depression diagnosis by fostering somatic aptitude in participants and if dance therapy helps provide any symptomatic relief associated with treatment resistant depression.
Interventions
Dance Therapy is a relational-somatic practice that utilises aspects of therapeutic movement movement along with the principles of group psychotherapy.
- The intervention will be facilitated once a week for for 12 weeks.
- Each session will be 45 minutes long. This 45-minute period will include: 10 minutes of warm-up, 15 minutes of movement development (i,e., use of mirroring, active imagination, use of metaphors, and group rhythmic movement), followed by 10 minutes of gentle stretching as the
Dance Therapy is a relational-somatic practice that utilises aspects of therapeutic movement movement along with the principles of group psychotherapy. - The intervention will be facilitated once a week for for 12 weeks. - Each session will be 45 minutes long. This 45-minute period will include: 10 minutes of warm-up, 15 minutes of movement development (i,e., use of mirroring, active imagination, use of metaphors, and group rhythmic movement), followed by 10 minutes of gentle stretching as the cool down activity, and finally ending with a 10 minute verbal brief. - The mode of facilitation will be face to face in a group setting. Each group will include a group of approx. 5 individuals with treatment resistant depression. The researchers aims to recruit two groups (of 5 individuals in each). - Participants are not expected to participate in any therapeutic activities at home. No movement exercises will be prescribed. - The frequency and duration of the intervention dose will be consistent across both groups. Session attendance will be taken to track participant's participation. Participants will be asked to log the date and time of the hair samples (that they will collect at their respective homes). Standardised sample kits (ziplocks with a coded sticker inside an opaque envelope) will be provided to each participant.
Sponsors
The University of Melbourne
Study design
Allocation
Non-randomised trial
Intervention model
Other
Primary purpose
Treatment
Masking
Open (masking not used)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
20 Years to 50 Years
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
Adults (between 18-50 yrs of age) who have a diagnosis of clinical depression which has either lasted at least 18 months OR have been identified to have ‘treatment resistance’ by a medical professional Have not experienced a significant reduction in symptoms despite trying at least two-cycles of anti-depressants.
Exclusion criteria
Persons who have an illness that requires urgent and persistent medical care. Persons who are at risk of active self-harm or are a fall risk.
Outcome results
None listed