Liu HL, Sun J, Meng SF, Sun N. Physiotherapy for patients with depression: Recent research progress. World J Psychiatry 2024; 14(5): 635-643 [PMID: 38808078 DOI: 10.5498/wjp.v14.i5.635]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Ning Sun, MD, Chief Physician, Department of Mental Health, First Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, No. 85 Jiefang South Road, Yingze District, Taiyuan 030000, Shanxi Province, China. sunning_sydyy@163.com
Research Domain of This Article
Psychiatry
Article-Type of This Article
Minireviews
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Psychiatry. May 19, 2024; 14(5): 635-643 Published online May 19, 2024. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v14.i5.635
Physiotherapy for patients with depression: Recent research progress
Hui-Ling Liu, Jing Sun, Shi-Feng Meng, Ning Sun
Hui-Ling Liu, Department of Mental Health, First Clinical Medical College of Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan 030000, Shanxi Province, China
Hui-Ling Liu, Jing Sun, Shi-Feng Meng, Department of Rehabilitation, First Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan 030000, Shanxi Province, China
Ning Sun, Department of Mental Health, First Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan 030000, Shanxi Province, China
Author contributions: Liu HL conducted the research and wrote the manuscript; Sun J and Meng SF collected the data; Sun N provided supervision and suggestions.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Ning Sun, MD, Chief Physician, Department of Mental Health, First Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, No. 85 Jiefang South Road, Yingze District, Taiyuan 030000, Shanxi Province, China. sunning_sydyy@163.com
Received: February 19, 2024 Revised: March 15, 2024 Accepted: April 18, 2024 Published online: May 19, 2024
Abstract
Depression, a common mental illness, seriously affects the health of individuals and has deleterious effects on society. The prevention and treatment of depression has drawn the attention of many researchers and has become an important social issue. The treatment strategies for depression include drugs, psychotherapy, and physiotherapy. Drug therapy is ineffective in some patients and psychotherapy has treatment limitations. As a reliable adjuvant therapy, physiotherapy compensates for the shortcomings of drug and psychotherapy and effectively reduces the disease recurrence rate. Physiotherapy is more scientific and rigorous, its methods are diverse, and to a certain extent, provides more choices for the treatment of depression. Physiotherapy can relieve symptoms in many ways, such as by improving the levels of neurobiochemical molecules, inhibiting the inflammatory response, regulating the neuroendocrine system, and increasing neuroplasticity. Physiotherapy has biological effects similar to those of antidepressants and may produce a superimposed impact when combined with other treatments. This article summarizes the findings on the use of physiotherapy to treat patients with depression over the past five years. It also discusses several methods of physiotherapy for treating depression from the aspects of clinical effect, mechanism of action, and disadvantages, thereby serving as a reference for the in-depth development of physiotherapy research.
Core Tip: Depression is a complex mental illness where a patient may exhibit a continuous, long-term low mood (a central feature). Psychotherapy and drug therapy are the most common treatments for depression; however, they have limitations. Physiotherapy is typically used to supplement or replace these therapies. In this study, the literature published in recent years was searched to identify the latest progress in physiotherapy for the treatment of depression and to provide empirical support for improving the cure rate and reducing the recurrence rate of the illness as much as possible.
