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CBC:An incredible window into the brain':New treatments target severe depression


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https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/depression-mental-health-hospital-patient-ultrasound-mri-magnets-seizure-1.4916212

 

Excerpt:

 

Electroconvulsive therapy or ECT, better known as shock treatment, is still considered the go-to treatment but comes with the common side effect of memory loss. So doctors are now exploring less invasive experimental approaches like brain stimulation that rewires the brain's circuits.

 

"Hard-to-treat depression is a huge public health problem" says Dr. Jeff Daskalakis of Toronto, at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health's Temerty Centre for therapeutic brain intervention. "The idea that we have treatments that could potentially rectify or improve their illness can be very reassuring to patients."

 

One of those treatments being tested at CAMH is magnetic seizure therapy or MST. A magnetic coil to the front part of the patient's head delivers a high-frequency pulse that induces a seizure. A big advantage is there are few or no adverse effects like memory loss.

 

"If we can limit those effects by delivering the stimulus at a much lower intensity with an alternative type of approach, in this case magnets as opposed to electricity, we can spare cognition and produce a seizure that gets people better," says Daskalakis.

 

Over 150 patients have received MST during clinical trials at CAMH.

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I have been in a hospital for mentally ill people. I say it clear. The woman in the bed beside me was shocked each monday and wednesday. She believed it would help her as the doctors told her.

 

I will never forget how she looked each time she was put back after those "sessions", in a wheelchair, totally broken physically and mentally she was simply gone. Then 3 hours later she got kind of manic, giggling, so unreal. and then fell back into a worse depression.

 

I was there for 3 months. She had been there for one hole year. They did that to her again and again, week by week.

She was a tortured soul and somehow they thought her that she needed to be tortured physically to "heal".

 

And now - a new experiment? Great.

 

AND I THINK AGAIN THE PATIENTS ARE MAINLY WOMEN.

 

 

Ps: I spoke to that woman a lot. Her main problem was that she had given up her life and career to marry a man and get children and she had 2 wonderful kids, a house, the man. But she was not happy - because - as she whispered - she would rather like to work again as a pilot and travel ... she did suicide 3 times, her arms were a mess.. because she could not escape out from her life.

She really was a mind opener for me and every second day I think about her and wonder where she is now.. :'(

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Oh my goodness, Marigold! What a story! Wow, that's heartbreaking. So, so sad. Thank you for sharing that, though.

 

I did not share this anywhere.. normal b´people would not believe it and all others have to cry.

I have seen so much things like that while I was in that hospital. It was the one that put me on my 1001 meds. There have been abusive things towards me, too. I was so strong. I think I am the only one who came out of that building and has something like a life now. I know others have been successfully killed by the meds or themselves and others are on the streets or back locked up there. If someone had told me what happens in such hospitals in germany 2012 - I would not have believed it. Even my ex who forced me to go there did apologize to me later.

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I wonder if people will look back in hindsight at some point in the near future and say, "Holy Crap! I can't believe we did that to people!"
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I wonder if people will look back in hindsight at some point in the near future and say, "Holy Crap! I can't believe we did that to people!"

 

Did they ever do that.

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