The clinical profile of seasonal affective disorder (SAD), a recurring condition of winter depressions and summer remissions which we first described over a decade ago, has been widely corroborated. Likewise, light therapy, which we first found be an effective treatment for SAD, has become a mainstream psychiatric treatment. We continue to study novel aspects of the clinical profile of SAD patients and effectiveness of light therapy. Publications of relevance to these topics during the past year include findings that: (1) light therapy, combined with dawn simulation, is superior to a control condition in reversing depressive symptoms in children and adolescents with SAD and (2) in a small number of subjects, a head-mounted light visor was as effective as light box at maintaining the antidepressant effects of light therapy for at least one week.
