How can I help a person who is progressively miserable for many years, meds not !

How can I help a person who is progressively miserable for many years, meds not helping?

This person says they feel useless and makes grunting noises. The main people he associates with are his son who is a great guy and is very concerned for his dad and his estranged wife who is very negative. We are watching his mentality and health deteriorate, doctors and meds aren't helping. What do we do???

Get him to see a psychologist for some counseling if he hasn't already (if he has, have him go see a different psychologist... some psychologists suck). Have him try at least 5 different psychologists (for a reasonable number of sessions each) before giving up on counseling. There are different types of counseling out there too... cognitive behavioral, interpersonal, etc. Also, have him go see a (different) psychiatrist. I mean, what meds has he tried? There are a lot of different antidepressants out there... I'd say he should have tried at least 2-3 different SSRIs, as well as at least one tricyclic, a MAOI and some of the other antidepressants such as bupropion (Wellbutrin) and venlafaxine (Effexor), and perhaps a quadricyclic. If he's tried all those different types of antidepressants and none work at all, then electroshock therapy could still work... disadvantage is memory loss of the past few months, but if it makes him happy, hey, whatever works. I know that after trying some antidepressants he might feel it's pointless to try others, but they work on different receptors in the brain in different ways, so even though he hasn't had any success with a bunch of them he might have success with another type. Most doctors nowadays only prescribe SSRIs... MAOIs are rarely prescribed because of dietary limitations and such but might work really well for someone who's not responsive to SSRIs.

Good luck and tell him to don't give up. :)