Written By: Debjani Arora | Published : August 23, 2018 7:19 PM IST
याददाश्त मजबूत बनाए रखने के लिए बादाम को काफी उपयोगी माना जाता है। © Shutterstock
Till now we have heard about medications and how they help to reduce the symptoms of depression but there can be times when medications don't give results as expected. This is when a different approach might be needed to tackle the situation. Recently scientists have been studying the effects of vagus nerve stimulation for depression. The FDA approved vagus nerve stimulation for treatment-resistant depression in 2005, but the procedure gained recognition recently. A recent study found that people who receive vagus nerve stimulation for depression experience significant improvements in quality of life, even when their symptoms don't completely subside.
A new study involved nearly 600 patients with depression who took four or more antidepressants, either separately or in combination to alleviate symptoms of depression. But they hardly worked. These patients suffered from treatment-resistant depression. Researchers evaluated vagus nerve stimulators, which send regular, mild pulses of electrical energy to the brain via the vagus nerve. The nerve originates in the brain, passes through the neck and travels down into the chest and abdomen.
"When evaluating patients with treatment-resistant depression, we need to focus more on their overall well-being," said principal investigator Charles R. Conway, professor of psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis to Washington University Press. "A lot of patients are on as many as three, four, or five antidepressant medications and they are just barely getting by. But when you add a vagus nerve stimulator, it really can make a big difference in people's everyday lives," he says.
Hope beyond medication
As many as two-thirds of the 14 million Americans with clinical depression don't respond to the first antidepressant drug they take, and up to one-third don't respond to subsequent attempts with other such drugs, reports the study. The researchers compared patients who received vagus nerve stimulation with others who received what the study referred to as "treatment as usual," which could include antidepressant drugs, psychotherapy, transcranial magnetic stimulation, electroconvulsive therapy, or some combination.
The researchers followed 328 patients implanted with vagus nerve stimulators, many of whom also took medication. They compared those patients with 271 similarly resistant depressed patients receiving only treatment as usual. In assessing the quality of life, researchers evaluated 14 categories, including physical health, family relationships, ability to work, and overall well-being. "On about 10 of the 14 measures, those with vagus nerve stimulators did better," Conway says. "For a person to be considered to have responded to a depression therapy, he or she needs to experience a 50 percent decline in his or her standard depression score." They concluded that vagus nerve stimulation has been a game-changer in the treatment of depression.
In the new study, which appears in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, patients with stimulators had significant gains in quality-of-life measures such as mood, ability to work, social relationships, family relationships, and leisure activities, compared with those who received only treatment as usual.
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