Not SAD anymore

As the Vermont days get shorter and shorter, those with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) can start to feel the effects, but hope is on the way.

Though the campus already features SAD lights, the University of Vermont is performing an ongoing research initiative to determine the most effective way to treat SAD.

UVM professor Kelly Rohan is at the heart of the experiment and has been featured in several publications, including the online magazine Science Daily.

In the past, SAD has primarily been treated by light therapy, using lights similar to those present in the Davis Center, Rohan said.

“CBT [Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy] could represent a more effective, practical and palatable approach to long-term SAD management than light therapy,” Rohan’s publication on behavioral therapy stated.

“Cognitive therapy solves it more proactively and has prevention benefits,” she said.
CBT aims to identify people’s challenges and frame them into rational thoughts, which is usually done through counseling, Rohan said.    

Yet this research has faced some difficulties, necessitating new research plans including one nine-year-long trial.     

“One of the biggest challenges has been going up against people who believe that light therapy is the only option for treatment of SAD,” graduate student and trial coordinator Yael Nillni said.

Senior psychology major Samantha Heller said that the artificial light used in light therapy mimics outdoor light,  providing effects like those of the sun.

Junior Lisa White found herself in need of relief from the winter gloom and said that she has weeks in the winter when she feels unhappy — probably so do a lot of people.
She even sat under the Davis Center lights to help, she said.

Some students are a bit more skeptical of the lights.

“I’m concerned about the lights in the Davis Center,” junior Tom Finan said.
Finan said that he worries about people using them incorrectly.

Although light therapy can be effective, 59 percent of patients did not continue the treatment due to issues of long-term compliance, Rohan said.

Rohan and multiple graduate students, including Nillni, are running the trial to determine whether or not this is true.     

In the experiment, they have groups participating in cognitive therapy, light therapy and cognitive and light therapy together, Rohan said.

Those included in the research vary in age and some take anti-depression medication, Rohan said.

The hope is that this research will help conclude which treatment is best for treating and preventing future episodes of SAD, Nillni said.