Vascular Augmentation of Late-life Unremitted Depression (VALUeD)

Summary

Depression has a high occurrence and causes other problems in older people, two thirds of these patients will not have a lessening in their condition from routine treatment medication. About half have a form of depression known as 'vascular depression'. Augmentation, the addition to, antidepressant treatment with a vascular type of treatment (such as a group of medications called Calcium Channel Blocker including the medication called amlodipine) may be effective in this group of patients but previously published studies have been from highly selected specific patient groups. The investigators would like to find out if giving amlodipine medication to people with late life non-responding vascular depression would be acceptable to this patient group. The investigators would also like to know how they feel while having the treatment and whether this provides a measurable benefit for those patients and whether those benefits are relevant to the patients. The investigators would also like to find out the information the investigators need to plan and prepare for a larger version of this study.

Conditions

• Depression

Interventions

DRUG

Amlodipine

Starting dose will be 5mg/day for four weeks. All participants will be titrated up to the maximum of 10mg/day after 4 weeks. If they do not tolerate this dose, it will be reduced again to 5mg/day and they will continue on their maximum tolerated dose for 12 weeks (for a total of 16 weeks of medication or placebo)

DRUG

Placebo

Starting dose will be 5mg/day for four weeks. All participants will be titrated up to the maximum of 10mg/day after 4 weeks. If they do not tolerate this dose, it will be reduced again to 5mg/day and they will continue on their maximum tolerated dose for 12 weeks (for a total of 16 weeks of medication or placebo)

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Newcastle-upon-Tyne Hospitals NHS Trust

  collaborator OTHER

• National Institute for Health Research, United Kingdom

  collaborator OTHER_GOV

• Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Alan Thomas, Dr · Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

QUADRUPLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

50 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2012-04-30

Primary Completion

2014-04-30

Completion

2014-04-30

Countries

• United Kingdom

Study Locations