November 2007 Charleston SCASA Meeting

Nov 9th, 2007
Charleston SCASA Meeting

Location: Zeus Grill and Seafood
721 Johnnie Dodds Blvd, Mount Pleasant, SC29464

6:30 pm Registration
7:00 pm Dinner (Greek Buffet) $16 non-students, $11 students
8:00 pm Guest Speaker: Professor Stephen Looney
Department of Biostatistics
Medical College of Georgia

Increasing Pleasant Events in the Nursing Home: Collaborative Behavioral Treatment for Depression
(a talk for a general statistical audience )

Depression is prevalent in nursing homes, but there are many barriers to effective treatment in these settings. In this presentation, I describe the successful behavioral treatment of a single nursing home resident with recurrent major depression. Successful treatment outcomes included markedly improved positive affect and increased activity level at post-treatment, and absence of depressive symptoms or diagnosis at both post-treatment and after a 12-week follow-up. Hierarchical data analysis based on mixed-models was used in two ways: (1) to fit separate regression models to baseline, treatment, maintenance, and follow-up phases and to use the *method of splines* to compare these regression models with each other, and (2) to compare the mean levels of the outcome variables across phases. The results of this study support the potential benefits of a theory-based, behavioral approach to treating depression in long-term care.

Contact Matteo Bottai for more information.
Please RSVP by 3:00pm Thursday, March 23rd