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Electronic response to: EDITORIALS Depression in Parkinson's disease Hervé Allain, Stéphane Schuck, and Nicolas Mauduit BMJ 2000; 320: 1287-1288 16 May 2000 Depression in Parkinson's disease "Must be properly diagnosed and treated to avoid serious morbidity." [1] "…doctors should ensure that it is diagnosed and properly treated." [1] Um…. Why? Call me old-fashioned, but I thought that in modern medicine we diagnosed and treated things because doing so would produce some benefit. But nowhere in the editorial by Allain and colleagues is there any reference to a study which suggests that treating what they call depression in Parkinson’s disease will do any good. Let alone that it will "avoid serious morbidity". Call me lazy (you won’t be the first) but I’m not sure that I as a reader should have to go off and do my own research to find justifications for the management plan advocated by the author of an editorial. It would have been quite nice to see just one reassuring citation which supported their proposal that treatment is of some use, but there is none. Instead there are a couple of worrying allusions. Firstly, what they mean by depression apparently does not correspond to my own familiar drug-responsive disease, lacking as it does all the negative distortions of thinking which are a core feature of the illness. Secondly, they call for clinical trials to determine the risk-benefit ratios of drug regimens, which is likely to set an old cynic like me a-wondering as to whether there actually are any benefits of these selfsame regimens in the first place. Or not. However their last paragraph does begin: "The depression associated with Parkinson’s disease must be treated. " [1] So that’s OK then. Tony Blair should double my salary. Tony Blair must double my salary. Maybe there’s something in this exhortation business after all…. 1. Allain H, Schuck S, Mauduit N. Depression in Parkinson’s disease. BMJ 2000;320 1287-8. David Curtis, Consultant psychiatrist Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel [log in to unmask] BMJ 2000. janet paterson 53 now / 41 dx / 37 onset 613 256 8340 / PO Box 171 Almonte Ontario K0A 1A0 Canada visit my website "a new voice" at: http://www.geocities.com/janet313/