depression

Question

My 20-year-old daughter has been in and out of hospital this past year, due to infections. She is getting more and more depressed and has no energy or wish to do anything outside the house. Can you give me advice on how to help her?

Answer

Dear concerned mother,

It may be time to review your daughter’s health status with the CF team at your local CF centre. This will give both the clinicians and your daughter the chance to explore some of her concerns and to review aspects of her diagnosis and treatment such as her sputum microbiology, medications and airway clearance techniques. The CF team will also be able to discuss treatments such as inhaled therapies, oral antibiotics such as Azithromycin and exercise with your daughter and talk through how much treatment is being done and whether this needs altered to achieve a maximum benefit. The team may explore how adherent your daughter is to her treatments, they may assist her in scheduling all her treatments into the day and discuss what goals your daughter would like to achieve. Setting goals is a great way to motivate a person and is something you could also encourage your daughter in.

Other aspects of her symptoms could also be explored to make sure factors outside of CF are not contributing to her symptoms. Your daughter may also wish to consider a referral to the CF psychologist.

I hope you find this information useful,
Best wishes to your daughter,

Professor Stuart Elborn
and Lauren Wilson (Physiotherapist)

21.12.2009

The answer is edited by: Prof Stuart Elborn