Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

Mental well-being is just as essential as physical health. The ability to live your life and make decisions, feel, and react the way you want is good mental health. At times, you may undergo a period of poor mental health that negatively affects your ability to think, reason, and feel in a situation. Mental illnesses are of different types, such as anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder. More than 50% of the people in the United States have experienced mental illness at some point in their lifetime. About 1 in 25 Americans has a serious mental illness like schizophrenia, major depression, or bipolar disorder.

A plethora of factors can raise the risk of developing a mental disorder. Experiencing traumatic events like sexual abuse, trauma, or witnessing violence; using alcohol and other recreational drugs; or even biological factors such as genes can raise the risk of developing mental illnesses.

TMS Treatment

There are two types of TMS therapies – repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and deep transcranial magnetic stimulation (dTMS), of which rTMS is being used for over 20 years. In the rTMS procedure, an electromagnet the size of your hand acts on small, 2-3 cm wide areas in the brain and releases small magnetic currents to stimulate nerve cells in the targeted section of the brain. The session lasts for about 40 minutes and is performed as an outpatient procedure. The side effects are mild and range from a headache to scalp discomfort.

dTMS, on the other hand, acts on a deeper, larger region of the brain. During this session, you will be asked to wear a cushioned helmet that produces short-lived magnetic fields. The session lasts for about 20 minutes daily and the course duration is four to six weeks. Newer protocols allow for shorter (“bursts”) sessions of 3 minutes and less than 20 minute and protocols can be administered in one week. dTMS is also done on an outpatient basis and has minimal side effects. There is no loss in memory or the need for anesthesia.

Dr. Adonis and a psychiatrist evaluate the patient and provide a customized plan, depending on their disorder and its severity.

TMS can help with: 

BRAIN PERFORMANCE

Business professionals, students preparing for important tests, professional athletes can all benefit from better reaction time, memory, focus, mental clarity, critical thinking. TMS sessions have proven effective in clinical studies to enhance several areas of cognitive functions including working memory (knowledge stored for later use), logical memory, verbal fluency, cognitive processing skills and attention. TMS can help you perform better on exams, sports and the competitive corporate world.

Depression

People who do not benefit from traditional therapies of antidepressants may benefit from TMS. TMS is the procedure of choice when individuals cannot tolerate the side effects of antidepressants or antidepressants are ineffective. This is a widely used procedure and greatly benefits in the treatment of depression.

TMS focuses on the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which is responsible for mood regulation, to induce brain activity in that region of the brain.

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)

When you have OCD, some sections of your brain are overactive, and this state is known as  hyperconnectivity. In his years of experience, Dr. A has observed that TMS helps in reducing the symptoms of OCD, which makes it easier to manage the disorder. Over time, you may notice that your symptoms go away completely.

Addiction

Symptoms of addiction can be treated with TMS. TMS controls the mood by stimulating the brain and also helps in fighting cravings. This is especially beneficial in substance addiction treatment such as for cocaine. TMS is being studied in the prevention of narcotic addiction in people who use these medications for chronic pain.

Bipolar depression

Mood swings between mania and depression characterize the condition of bipolar depression. In many people, standard drug therapies may not be effective. In these cases. The stimulation from the magnetic field helps restore the normal activity of the brain.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

PTSD lowers the quality of life and the ability of an individual to function normally. It is prevalent in about 8% of the population, and an additional 5%-15% may experience it in milder forms. DTMS can be of great help in the treatment of PTSD by stimulating the part of the brain related to PTSD.

Obesity

DTMS helps reduce food cravings and induces weight loss in people who are obese. The magnetic field is applied to the specific regions of the brain to control obesity. 

Migraine

For many people, drug therapy is not a feasible option for the treatment of migraine. TMS delivers the magnetic pulse to the back of the head and generates mild currents in the brain. These interrupt the activity associated with migraine in the brain.

Smoking cessation

Smoking is a major concern in the developed world. In the process of quitting smoking, during the nicotine withdrawal period, brain activity is affected, leading to craving and relapse and then continued consumption of nicotine. Dr. A targets the region of the brain related to the addiction, which helps in keeping your nicotine addiction under control.

Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer’s disease

Cognitive decline is taking epidemic proportions and affecting younger people each year. Deep TMS has shown promising results in people suffering from several forms of cognitive decline, especially when used with adjuvant therapies like cognitive training. 

The effectiveness of TMS in conditions such as tinnitus (hearing sounds when no sound is present), Alzheimer’s disease, opioid addiction, schizophrenia, rehabilitation after a stroke and other neurological disorders is being currently researched.

Neurological disorders may sound scary but can be treated using TMS.