Helen Lavretsky

Helen Lavretsky is an Associate Professor at the Department of Psychiatry and the Semel Institute at UCLA. She is a geriatric psychiatrist with the research interest in geriatric depression and caregiver stress as well as complementary and alternative medicine and mind-body approaches to treatment and prevention of disorders in older adults. She directs the Late life Mood, Stress, and Wellness research program at the UCLA Semel Institute. She is a recipient of the Career Development awards from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and other prestigious research awards. Her current research studies include the NIMH-funded randomized trial of methylphenidate augmentation of citalopram to improve clinical and cognitive outcomes in geriatric depression and the NCCAM-funded study of complementary use of Tai-Chi to improve antidepressant response in geriatric depression as well as a treatment trial for family dementia caregivers funded by the Forest Research Institute and Alzheimer’s Research Prevention Foundation. Her previous research addressed the impact of medical illness and cerebrovascular disease and candidate genes on cognitive and mood disorders in later life. After receiving her medical degree from the Moscow Medical Institute, Russia, Dr. Lavretsky performed her residency in psychiatry at UCLA-San Fernando Valley Residency Program, followed by the UCLA Fellowship in Geriatric Psychiatry, and the national VA Research Fellowship in Neurosciences. She received her M.S. degree in clinical research from the UCLA in 2004.

Biography Updated on 9 March 2010

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