In the medical field, 175 years is a long time. It probably goes without saying that there have been some major advancements in medicine over the passing decades. Medicines and treatments that brought innovative care, a deeper understanding, and relief for those suffering from common mental illnesses. For these reasons (and more!), we celebrate the American Psychiatric Association’s 175th anniversary of its founding in 1844.
Disrupt, Include, Engage, & Innovate
The theme of this year’s APA meeting was appropriately titled ‘disrupt, include, engage, & innovate’. Four very powerful words that encompass the evolution of psychiatry and how far we’ve come, but there’s still work to do!
We disrupt the stigma surrounding mental health by recognizing depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, and all other mental health illnesses as ILLNESSES. Our disruption and recognition of these illness helps encourage those suffering to reach out for help.
We include everyone in the conversation about mental health. Depression and other mental health disorders do not discriminate. It does’t matter how old you are, where you live, or where you work…everyone needs to be included in the conversation.
We engage society in conversations to help normalize mental illness. No one should be shamed into silence when it comes to potentially life-threatening diseases.
And last, but certainly not least, we innovate through new life-saving treatments.
dTMS, Esketamine, Ketamine, & now…SAINT?
Let’s talk more about the need for innovative psychiatric solutions even in 2019…
Currently, depression is the leading cause of disability and poor health worldwide. And, we know that traditional antidepressants don’t work or cause unwanted side effects for one-third of people. In these cases, we turn to innovative solutions for relief and restoration.
We’ve written before about our dTMS services at NYC Psychiatry. We use Deep Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to treat major depressive disorder in an outpatient setting that does not require hospitalization or anesthesia, is generally well tolerated, and entails minimal systemic side effects.
NYC Psychiatry also offers ketamine infusions for restoration in cases of treatment-resistant depression with success. Recently, we welcomed ketamine’s cousin (esketamine/Spravato) upon its FDA Approval in March of ’19.
It’s an exciting time in psychiatry. There are so many innovations that can help people regain wellness. We’re renewing hope and providing relief through innovative medicine and we’ll continue to do so as safe, new solutions emerge like SAINT.
New SAINT TMS Protocol – Here’s What We Know
‘Stanford Accelerated Intelligent Neuromodulation Therapy’ or SAINT is a new TMS protocol out of Stanford with some very successful and interesting studies to back it. SAINT is different from current FDA-approved iTBS protocols in a few ways. The treatment uses precise targeting, accelerated delivery, and high pulse dosing.
Unlike, FDA-approved protocols which only deliver one iTBS session per day, the SAINT protocol delivered 10 sessions per day with session delivered 50 minutes apart. Depressive symptoms decreased from baseline immediately following SAINT with an 87.66% reduction in the mean Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) score from 37.68 (SD=7.24) to 4.65 (SD=6.46). {source: http://www.researchgate.net}
We’re thankful for the advancements made and we celebrate the astounded accomplishments of the APA over the years! We continue to work to find relief for those who aren’t helped by first-line treatments as exciting new treatments continue to emerge.
Contact Amanda Itzkoff MD’s Office to Schedule an Appointment: amanda@psychiatristsnyc.com or ring my office at (917)-982-2184.