TRANSCRANIAL MAGNETIC STIMULATION: ALTERNATIVE TO SHOCK
by Katherine Tapley-Milton
Shock therapy is back in vogue among psychiatrists, a fact which is very
disturbing. While the doctors
claim it
helps the deep depression of bipolar mood disorder and is safe, in reality
shock therapy can have the
side effect of long term or short term memory damage
that in a lot of cases can be permanent. An alternative
therapy, TMS or
“Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation” seems to be a less barbaric treatment which
does not
cause brain damage. General
anesthetic is not required with TMS and specific areas of the brain can be
targeted without causing a convulsion.
According to the National Alliance
successful in
helping people who are severely depressed.”
TMS uses an external magnet to stimulate the left
prefrontal cortex, an
area of the brain that is found to be functioning abnormally in depressed
individuals. Dr.
Mark George comments,
“This new tool allows us for the first time in the history of mankind to
non-
invasively stimulate the brain while the person is awake and alert.” In a
study of 30 depressed, suicidal
patients who had not been helped by medication,
20 had TMS for 20 minutes five days a week for a
fortnight. Ten patients had the magnetic device placed
on their heads but didn’t receive the treatment. None
of the patients knew if they received
the real treatment or not. The patients
who received the TMS therapy
showed a marked improvement in their depression,
while the controls showed no improvement at all.
Apparently, the only side effect of TMS is
that a third of the patients reported a mild headache, which was
easily
relieved with common over the counter remedies like ibuprophen.
The biological mechanisms that trigger depression are still not well
known, however, research done using
MRI machines has detected abnormalities in
the prefrontal cortex of depressed patients.
This reason lead
scientists to consider TMS as tool to target that
area. Before TMS becomes a standard
treatment for
depression at your local Mental Health Clinic, more studies have
to be done to determine why it works, what
intensity of magnetic power to use,
and how frequent the treatment should be.
However, Dr. George feels
that further MRI research will reveal more of
the brains secrets. Also, there is
controversy over whether a
treatment which does not cause a convulsion is as
effective as electroshock which does cause a convulsion.
Traditional electroshock requires anesthesia
and this can produce over sedation and vomiting afterwards,
while TMS does not
have these discomforts.
There are a significant number of depressed patients who are not helped
by antidepressants or
experience too unpleasant side effects to tolerate
them. While there is still
experimentation going on with
TMS it has been around for ten years and looks
like a humane and viable alternative to shock therapy.
