Depression is a form of mental illness many of us are, unfortunately, familiar with. Depression, like any mental illness, has no preference regarding gender, occupation, lifestyle or age – it is not discriminant, and it can take its toll on any of us.
While no definitive cure for depression has been developed, tremendous advancements have been made in the context of treating it effectively. In fact, “a new form of magnetic brain stimulation rapidly relieved symptoms of severe depression in 90% of participants in a small study conducted by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine,” says an article from The Good News Network.
You may be questioning what exactly this form of treatment consists of. “The treatment is called Stanford Accelerated Intelligent Neuromodulation Therapy—or SAINT. It is a form of transcranial magnetic stimulation, which is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treatment of depression,” the article explains. “The researchers reported that the therapy improves on current FDA-approved protocols by increasing the number of magnetic pulses, speeding up the pace of the treatment, and targeting the pulses according to each individual’s neurocircuitry.”
The article goes on to explain how this type of treatment was used on 21 different individuals, all of whom were severely depressed. After receiving the treatment, “19 of them scored within the non-depressed range. Although all of the participants had suicidal thoughts before the therapy, none of them reported having suicidal thoughts after treatment. All 21 participants had previously not experienced improvements with medications, FDA-approved transcranial magnetic stimulation or electroconvulsive therapy,” the article states.
The results from this study are by far the most promising I’ve seen in terms of treating depression, and I think this magnetic approach could prove to be incredibly successful in a broader spectrum of mental illness. I’m no doctor, but if this form of treatment could truly and effectively help those of us suffering from depression, the world really would be a better place.
ontheedgeofeverything 