New treatment can alleviate major depression

SALT LAKE CITY — Jeanne Pudoff-Oyen has been depressed for more than a decade. Not the "I wish I'd been a better (fill-in-the-blank)," kind of depression, but the "living inside this black cloud I want to kill myself" kind of chronic depression that doesn't respond to traditional therapy or medication.

But a new treatment now available at the University of Utah Neuropsychiatric Institute looks to provide new hope for patients like Pudoff-Oyen, who haven't found relief from their depression using medication.

In fact, Pudoff-Oyen says that transcranial magnetic stimulation "literally saved my life," after she had tried every medication and dosage available, to no avail.

TMS was approved for treating depression by the Food and Drug Administration in 2008, according to Dr. Howard Weeks, a psychiatrist who is believed to be the first in the state to employ the technology.

The treatment is done in what looks like a dental chair. Patients sit while Weeks strategically places an extension of the TMS machine against the side of their head, much as dental assistants position the arm of an X-ray machine.

The machine "generates an MRI-strength magnetic field" inside the patient's head, which provides an electrical current to a small area of the brain, he said.

"We're targeting it over an area called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which is the part of the brain that affects depression."

The process stimulates the release of nerve chemicals into a deeper region of the brain in a way that hasn't previously been possible, Weeks said, and the result for many is a marked lessening of depressive symptoms.

The catch for many patients is that TMS requires multiple treatments before any benefit is detected, he said, noting insurance companies may be reluctant to pay when other treatment options are available, even if they're not as effective.

Research presented in May to the American Psychiatric Association shows relapse rates for patients using TMS were much lower than those for patients who used only drugs or electroconvulsive therapy.

Two separate studies showed only 10 percent to 12 percent of patients who were able to achieve an initial remission of symptoms suffered a relapse after undergoing TMS. Relapse rates for those using medications or ECT have been about 40 percent.