Depression is a treatable cause of suffering among multiple sclerosis patients and can result in suicide

Depression results from chemical changes within the brain and results in feeling sad, excessive tiredness, loss of interest in daily activities, and changes in eating and sleeping habits. Severe depression can lead to thoughts of suicide and is the most common problem leading to suicide. Importantly, depression is usually treatable with medications and psychotherapy.Depression often complicates multiple sclerosis (MS). Estimates vary, but 50 to 60% of MS patients develop some degree of depression and, like depression in general, it responds to treatment. While MS is often disabling, it rarely causes death. One cause of premature death among MS patients is suicide, which occurs more frequently in these patients than in the general population. You can learn more about depression and MS on the next page.In this issue of Neurology , two articles (Feinstein A. An examination of suicidal intent in patients with multiple sclerosis. Neurology 2002;59:674–678; and Patten SH, Metz LM. Interferon s-1a and depression in secondary progressive MS: Data from the SPECTRIMS Trial. Neurology 2002;59:744–746) shed new light on the problems of depression and suicide in MS. An editorial (Caine ED, Schwid SR. Multiple sclerosis, depression, and the risk of suicide. Neurology 2002;59:662–663) also appears in this month’s Neurology. Feinstein studied 140 patients attending an MS clinic in Toronto, Canada. He found that 40 (29%) patients had thought about committing suicide and nine had attempted suicide. Among the entire group of 140 patients, about one-third had a history of major depression at some time. In comparing the 40 patients who had a history of suicidal intent …