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[quote=Anonymous]OP here with an update. It's now 11.5 months since my mom's extreme depression and anxiety began, and it has FINALLY lifted. She's her normal self again...still very elderly (she's 87) and still very frail, but the depression and anxiety is GONE.

What happened since I last posted...
The main thing is she started seeing a new psychiatrist who diagnosed her with bipolar depression and started her on lamotrigine. We also continued the other treatments:
 - CBT for insomnia (she started sleeping normally for her about 6 months in to this episode)
 - therapy - she started seeing a therapist weekly, also about 6 months in
 - exercise - slowly over past 8 months she has been increasing her exercise. For the last 2 months we have been walking together at a faster pace than she walks on her own - about 2.5mph for 15-20 min. I had read so many studies emphasizing the benefits of exercise for depression.

I think everything we were doing in addition to the medication was helping, but the bipolar depression diagnosis and new medication probably were the game changers. Lamotrigine is supposed to be better at preventing recurrence of depression than lifting someone out of depression...but here we are. I can't believe that with about 10+ lifetime severe depressive episodes that have each been up a a year in duration it took until age 87 to reach a diagnosis and find an effective treatment...but here we are, and we are all so thankful.
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