Telephone-administered psychotherapy may help relieve the depression of patients battling multiple sclerosis, according to a new study.

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, found that 16 weeks of therapy by phone helped ease feelings of depression.

Although two-thirds of depressed MS patients prefer therapy to antidepressants, just 10 percent to 45 percent make a first appointment, and half drop out by the end of treatment, experts say. Reasons include physical impairments, transportation woes and lack of time or money.

Phone-based therapy gets around many of those problems, but the researchers say research is needed to determine whether it is equivalent to face-to-face interventions.News-Leader.com