Best Life: Ketamine works on treatment-resistant depression

HOUSTON, Texas (Ivanhoe Newswire) – Two hundred eighty million people with depression live in a world devoid of color, with little hope of change.

Most are prescribed anti-depressants, but what if those don’t work? The gold standard is electroconvulsive therapy, but researchers seeking alternatives just tested IV Ketamine with great results.

Treatment-resistant depression affects 185% of Americans.

“What depression has left for them is the feeling of being stuck,” said Vice Chair of Research at Baylor College of Medicine, Sanjay Mathew, MD.

Traditional anti-depressant meds just don’t work, even after several rounds.

“Treatment-resistant depression signifies when a patient has not responded optimally to at least two conventional treatments,” said Dr. Mathew.

At that point, patients may undergo electroconvulsive therapy.

“The brain’s seizure and the brain’s response to having that seizure is what is therapeutic. One of the challenges with ECT is, it is often associated with memory loss,” said Dr. Mathew.

This study at Baylor College of Medicine tested a viable alternative to ECT – intravenous ketamine, a common anesthetic drug. Some of the 400 participants with major depressive disorder received several infusions over three weeks.

“The overall results suggested ketamine had a slightly elevated rate of response compared to ECT. It means that patients improved in their depression scores of about 50%,” said Dr. Mathew.

Motivating them to live life again.

“We had one patient who reported that they want to finally sort through their laundry and sort through the mail that had been stacking up in their apartment,” said Dr. Mathew.

Dr. Mathew says depression still presents a challenge to physicians because there is not a complete understanding of its full biology. Major depression remains a diagnosis, based on symptoms.

Contributors to this news report include: Donna Parker, Producer; Bruce Maniscalco, Videographer; Roque Correa, Editor.

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