Would You Like to Rub My Brain?
Don’t answer that. I got an email from Maiken Scott, behavioral health reporter for WHYY, the PBS affiliate in Philly. She wrote:
Last year, I met with Dr. John O’Reardon, a U Penn scientist who invited me to cover a new treatment for severe depression as it develops and undergoes scientific testing. This approach is called DBS, or Deep Brain Stimulation. It is already being used successfully in the treatment of symptoms associated with Parkinson’s Disease. Dr. O’Reardon is passionate about helping people with treatment-resistant depression, and he cares deeply about his patients. Yesterday, I was in the OR at Pennsylvania Hospital, and watched the procedure. I had previously met with the patient. Her name is Tara, she is 50 and has suffered with depression for almost 40 years – we spoke at length before her surgery. I have started to file stories and we’re covering this as it develops both on air and on the web. I plan to follow her for the rest of the year, as she recovers and as scientists learn whether this treatment will bring her relief.
Sounds very interesting to me, and Maiken is a really good reporter. Check it out here.
liz | 1:18 PM | alternative treatments, depression, hospitals / hospitalization, media, meds, side effects
I’d be interested to know how it all turns out for Tara. It was heart wrenching to hear her say, “If I don’t wake up, I don’t wake up.” She mentioned in one of the tapes that she “loved the people she worked with,” yet at the same time she lost her desire to keep going to work and to just “keep going.”
Why does this treatment have to be so overly dramatic. Someone suffering from a seizure disorder might have this and be so damn thankful the “risk” of being seizure free exists! I think that the bipolar community does not always want to lose their bipolar symptoms. Again, if we look at bipolar as a treatable medical illness – as everyone seems to want it to be treated as – then the melodramatic shit has got to stop. If it can be treated and make life for a family and the person and society at large, have hope that there is a silver lining, than role out the deep brain stimulators!
A deep brain stimulator looks like a fun thing to try out. Assuming it doesn’t do any damage.
Dear Liz,
Thanks for the heads up on this reporting. I just forwarded the information to a very dear friend whose been a human guinea pig trying to find any therapy that would relieve her MDD. In fact, my friend is also a DBS study subject for depression.
In response to “family member” and having the years of experience and knowledge that I do as a support person and caregiver to my spouse I personally feel any treatment or therapy is “dramatic” if and when the patient finally obtains efficacy and some degree of remission.
Serious mood disorders are medical illnesses but the greater question, at least in my mind, is the ability to find the proper treatment for the individual.
I don’t think in my opinion that DBS or any of the invasive and/or pharmacological approaches to treating any of these illnesses “looks like a fun thing to try out.” Knowing as I do most all these treatments and therapies carry caldrons of potential serious side-effects and complications.
Bravo to this young woman and others that I am well aware of for not giving up or giving in to their illness and for sharing their experiences as a possible encouragement to others to be informed and to make un-coerced medical decisions in collaboration with one’s attending physician(s).
Warmly,
Herb
VNSdepression.com
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