The NIH Consensus Development Conference on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Depression in Late Life: an overview

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Consensus Development Conference on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Depression in Late Life took place on November 4-6, 1991. The full statement of the Consensus Panel, chaired by Arnold J. Friedhoff, M.D., was published in a Consensus Statement and in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The purpose of this article is to provide a brief overview of the planning for the Consensus Development Conference, with particular emphasis on the questions posed by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Planning Committee to members of the panel. This is followed by a brief synopsis of the panel's opinions on issues raised by the NIMH Planning Committee, as well as their opinions on the most promising issues for future research in late-life depression. The main purposes of the NIH Consensus Development Conference were first, to translate research findings into guidelines for clinical practice, so far as this is possible, and second, to suggest promising directions for the Nation's research agenda in late-life depression.