Yale Medical School Mobilizes for Depression Screening Day

Yale School of Medicine psychiatrists will be on the Concourse at the State Capitol in Hartford October 5 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. for National Depression Screening Day (NDSD).

The psychiatrists will discuss treatment and research initiatives to better the lives of Connecticut residents living with depressive disorders. An estimated 60 million adults suffer from a mood disorder. The cost to the nation is about $273 billion annually.

NDSD began 15 years ago as the first nationwide, community-based mental health screening program. NDSD Mental Health Screening is designed to call attention to mood and anxiety disorders on a national level, to educate the public and clinicians about the symptoms and effective treatments, to offer individuals the opportunity to be screened for the disorders, and to connect those in need of treatment to the mental health care system.

“We want to educate people about mood disorders,” said Hilary Blumberg, M.D., associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Yale and director of the Mood Disorders Research Program. “We want to tell them about the latest research and let them know they don’t need to suffer, that there are many new treatments available.”

“The Abraham Ribicoff Research Facilities of the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services are unique,” Blumberg said. “They have enabled Yale researchers to make major advances in mood disorders and their treatment.”

The interdisciplinary mood disorders program is designed to bring together Yale’s unique excellence, both in basic and clnical mood disorders research, toward the long-term goal of translating preclinical research into improved methods to prevent, detect and treat mood disorders.

The psychiatrists’ expertise includes bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, post- and pre-partum depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder, including persons who have been traumatized by the recent Hurricane Katrina or served in the war in Iraq. They are based at Yale medical school and at the Abraham Ribicoff Research Center of the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services and the Veterans Affairs Connecticut Healthcare System. They will be joined by members of the Connecticut Psychiatric Society.

For more information about depression and other mental disorders, please call 1-800-ASK-YALE and/or go the following website, www.mood.yale.edu.