LOS ANGELES, March 30, 2009
Bringing Teen Depression To Light
CBS Evening News: Gov't Task Force Recommends Regular Screening, Lists Signs
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Play CBS Video Video Monitoring Teen Depression According to officials from the Preventive Services Task Force say that all adolescents age 12 to 18 should be screened for major depressive disorder. Bill Whitaker reports.
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18-year-old Taryn felt so depressed, anxious and isolated in 9th grade, she started using hard drugs and ended up in rehab. (CBS)
Now, a government task force is asking doctors to check all teenagers for depression regularly.
Behind the statistics are teens like 18-year-old Taryn. She felt so depressed, anxious and isolated in 9th grade, she started using hard drugs and ended up in rehab at Visions Adolescent Treatment Centers.
"It was just getting so out of control that I couldn't wake up and have a normal day anymore," Taryn says.
Most major teen depression goes undiagnosed and untreated, Whitaker reports.
Dr. Ned Calonge, Chairman of the Preventive Services Task Force says all adolescents age 12 to 18 should be screened for major depressive disorder.
The influential task force recommends that pediatricians screen all teens annually - not just those with obvious symptoms - with detailed but simple questions on mood, anxiety and substance abuse, like, how often have you been bothered by:
The screening is designed to identify "Not just a bad day or disappointment but something that's present in the child's life for weeks or even months," says Dr. James McCracken, a professor in child psychotherapy at UCLA.
"This isn't a recommendation to test for depression and then treat with drugs alone," says Dr. Calonge.
But doctors are convinced widespread screening and treatment, especially talk therapy, can improve and save young lives.
By Bill Whitaker
© MMIX, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Add a Comment See all 11 Comments
- I am actually very amazed and annoyed at how EVERYONE has jumped to negative conclusions from this article. Did it ever occur to you that ... maybe they do actually want to help? Children and their families are perfectly within their rights to refuse (drug) treatment, so don't go acting like you're not gulping the pills down. Also drug treatments are becoming increasingly less potent, if used at all, as health official begin to recognise the more important and effective in the long term options of therapy. The treatments of depression, much like its causes are many and varied. Stop acting like everyone?s out to get you. I?m not saying these problems don?t exist, but your suspicious attitude is just another part of the problem. You are your kids? role model ? if hate and fear are your reactions to the people supposedly protecting you, then no wonder we?ve got alienation in the younger generation.
And don't go pointing the finger soley at parents or technology. They are only a small part of a huge problem. The big issue is that there are kids with depression, there are kids who WANT TO KILL THEMSELVES instead of enjoying that are arguably the best, carefree years of a human's life. And ?Talking to a friend? is all well and good but our society is condition to have aversion to mental illness. It?s like the sexism or racism of the 21st century. Many teens will keep silent, for fear of being told they?re being ridiculous, that ?it?s just a phase?, ?stop being so gloomy?, ?but we like you the way you are? or any other comments. As if because they?re younger, their feelings are not valid. It?s scientifically proven that during adolescence the part of the brain that deals with logic and relationships is put on the sidelines, if you will, while the rest of the brain sorts itself out for the future. So such high levels of depression are not that astounding when you realise the kids are biologically prone to being confused and misinterpreting other?s emotions. And yet we kept telling them that this is unusual, and then when it gets worse, that it doesn?t exist! Such has been our attitude of aversion and discrimination to sufferers of teen depression that it was rarely acknowledged or diagnosed until recent years- this coupled with our increasingly confusing way of regulating social society has lead to the dramatic increase in teen depression. Due to technology and globalisation there is an expectation that children to have hundreds, if not thousands of friends, to stretch themselves in a thousand ways for social status and if they don?t achieve unreasonable demand then there is something seriously wrong with them. A hundred year ago you were lucky if you knew 800 or so people by their faces ... these days, if this is the limit of your knowledge you are regarded as retarded socially. And all the while their brains are misguiding them, telling them they?re being laughed at when actually they?re being laughed with. Don?t pretend that the kids who do have problems don?t ? you?re just conforming to society too!
In light of the date tomorrow (9/11) I?d like to tell you to lighten up. You Americans have been through **** and it's given you guys an increasingly jaded attitude, but what country hasn?t? As a democracy, it is within your power to stand up to your leaders and say, ?I don?t like this.? Don?t sit on your couch, whining that they?re all out to get you. A common problem is society?s problem and it takes EVERYONE to fix it. Your children will only be happy if you show them that you think it?s worth it. And life is worth it. - Reply to this comment
- This is obviously a free advertising campaign for corrupt shrinks and the drug industry. With that said let's move one step closer to the truth by expanding the issue a little..
"mtomany6" is on the right track but it goes a little further. This is a blatant attempt (beyond the money angle) to suppress everyone's rights in the name of help. You have the obvious school related cons to induce psychological pressure by making schools a concentration camp. People that should be separated from society are main streamed to create trauma for everyone around them. Counselors act as nothing more than spies while convincing the kids it is the family that is deficient instead of the schools and of course we have the cops on campus to give it all that homey concentration camp feel.They apply pressure, prey on weakness and try to entrap kids for life. I guess that is Social Science in action.
Meanwhile out in the real world, the goal again is to undermine Everyone's rights in the name of helping. The shrinks create problems to strip people of their constitutional and basic human rights. This is all replaced by drugs and con games.Whether it is school, jobs, military or your own home, the goal is to make sure the victims of the fraudulent trade of psychology are stripped of human dignity and given a pill in exchange. Then we have the blatant entrapment schemes where the entire scenario is invented to undermine legal rights.
Some other time I will get into the legal community and their desire for a police state through psychiatry but until them look back on the FLDS kidnappings, Vrginia shooting (and elsewhere), Gitmo tortures, etc and realize psychiatry is your enemy. Each of these was precipitated by actions or inaction of corrupt Psychiatrists to undermine the freedom of those involve and make them victems.
So why does the news media keep pushing these lies? If they know how to investigate they know they are lying to the public every time they give free advertising line the story above to help entrap someone into the system. Let's ask Couric to explain how many mental conditions are actually just inventions and how few cures there are for the very few real mental problems. The cowardice of the press helps makes victims of us all. - Reply to this comment
- Being a teen is depressing. As Ninjadudeismyidol said above you grab a friend and you talk. The solution doesn't have to involve sticking a pill in your mouth.
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- Just another excuse to sell people more drugs.
....I wouldn't believe a word these people say - Reply to this comment
- As a teen i feel as if i would know this subject a little better than most if not all adults. My input on the matter is simply, when i get depressed i find someone to talk too. Since parents arent there most of the time i have gotten use to the fact that my friends are the only ones i can really talk too.
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- The marketing strategy for antidepressants is working folks! If you think the suicide rate among teens is high now, wait til this screening plan goes into effect and they give perfectly normal teens mind-altering drugs. Katie Couric, you ought to be ashamed of your reporting on this. Follow the money. Read some books. Educate yourself.
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- Depression screening has vested interests:
http://www.signsofsuicide.org
Studies reveal that screening has a very high false-positive rate (labelling children who are not depressed and saying they are).
About 2 million teens a year suffering from depression? My question is: What did we do for the last hundreds of years that this is just now an "epidemic"? How is it that until the last 10 years this wasn't even recognized as a situation? How did BILLIONS of teens throughout history ever survive without all this screening, diagnosing and treatment? What has changed in our lives that makes this an epidemic now? Wouldn't addressing THAT issue bring a resolve?
I highly doubt that all those teens are suffering from a disorder of their brain! Maybe those vested interests are what has changed to bring about this "epidemic".
Make no mistake about it, drugging IS the number 1 choice of treatment. Do you know that when psychiatrists were surveyed it was found that the "treatment" for 9 out of 10 of the children is drugging? And that rarely is a child put on just one drug - it is usually two or more. Do you know that according to surveys/studies that a regular pediatrician is MORE likely to prescribe a drug than therapy?
And WHY is big government being allowed to put their noses into my families health? Since when does the government know BETTER than me what is best for my child? Who elected them to be the parent?
And in case you think you, as a parent, will have choices think again - the paperwork and forms that you DON'T see have a checkbox that the screener fills out that looks like this:
If the student?s screening indicated a problem;
Did you notify parents? Yes No
Provide a reference? Yes No
Did parents agree to follow up? Yes No
If Yes, did they do so in a timely and appropriate manner? Yes No
If No, did you notify DHS (child services)? Yes No
Our rights as parents are being eroded under the guise of "help". Our tax dollars are paying for this invasion. Our state's Medicaid's are going broke over the prescribing practices and the costs. Think those statements are alarmist and "right wing" or whatever? Then do the research and see for yourself!
It is not impossible to look at individual state records and find out the costs of these drugs and the amount of money being dumped into screening. It is not hard to see what these escalating costs are doing to state's budgets. It is easy to find the vested interests behind all this mental health and depression screening. All the documented information is on the internet.
WHO BENEFITS? Follow the money - Reply to this comment
- Two million teens are clinically depressed?
Legalize marijuana and you'll cut that number by three-fourths. - Reply to this comment
- This is really just a ruse to sell addictive antidepressive drugs under the guise of doing something good. I believe this type of thing constitutes the worst kind of fraud there is. Getting young people with no symptoms into a dangerous close encounter with people pushing antidepressive drugs so addictive it takes years to ween off of them is not helpful. Both teen and adult suicides, not to mention arbitrary mass shootings have all increased dramatically since the advent of anti-depressants. Sadly, the professionals are currently doing more harm than good! Parents, you need to protect your children
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- Based on all the data we see in the media daily we are all depressed in some way and need to be medicated. If we all submit to the daily barage of advertisments under the guise of being news or commercials we will lose our free will to improve our condition. I can only imagine the differance in the declration of independace and all the other progress over the last 200 plus years if we medicated the founding fathers because they were unhappy.
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- Teen depression is only a problem because parents give them all of the electronic crap to keep them out of their hair, and then have no communication with them. Even teens NEED their parents to be there for them. They do not NEED their own TV, Cell Phone, Computer or all the other crap parents today shove down their throats to make up for the fact that they do not have time for them, and don't want time with them. These are the same reasons we have so many school shootings.
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