Antidepressants Aid Depressed Parkinson's Patients April 11, 2012 -- Certain antidepressantmedications can help treat depression in people with Parkinson's disease without making the symptoms of the disease worse, according to a new study.

Researchers looked at two common types of antidepressant medicines in the study. They found that both improved depression.

There has been a lingering suspicion that antidepressants may make the symptoms of Parkinson's worse, but this study may help set aside some of those fears.

"We showed that we have effective and well-tolerated treatments for depression in Parkinson's," says researcher Irene Hegeman Richard, MD, associate professor of neurology and psychiatry at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

"Depression is the thing that most impacts quality of life," she says. "It's present in almost 50% of patients."

About a million people in the U.S. have the brain disorder, according to the National Parkinson's Foundation. It leads to shaking or tremors and difficulty with walking, movement, or coordination.

The study is published in the journal Neurology. It was funded by the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

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