Medication-Free Treatments a Boost for Local Depression Sufferers

By Madeleine Gray on August 4, 2016 in News

Depression is an illness we don’t like to talk about. Perhaps it’s because we can’t see it that it frightens us so much. But Beyond Blue’s latest stats suggest that 45 per cent of Australians will experience a mental health condition in their lifetime.

Depression rates in the Eastern Suburbs are high. Rates of depression go up in high-stress industries, and in the lives of those who find themselves living the same mundane day over and over again.

A lot of people suffer in silence. Professor Colleen Loo of UNSW says depression sufferers are often “struggling to think… like their brain is in a fog. But on the outside, they look well. So people don’t understand what’s wrong.”

Some ‘lucky’ sufferers feel supported enough to seek psychological help. For many of these people, medication is beneficial: a treatment of anti-depressants combined with regular psychological or psychiatric sessions can be enough to gradually lift the burden that depression imposes.

However, others diagnosed with depression do not want to take the medication route. Perhaps it’s because they are affected by the stigma that still surrounds anti-depressants. Perhaps their biology is not compatible with the medicine. Perhaps their condition is such that it would be difficult for them to remember, or continue to desire, to take their medication. Speaking from experience, it is very tempting to stop taking your anti-depressants when you are feeling better. Sometimes something more than medication is necessary.

As such, Professor Colleen Loo, who has over 20 years’ experience in researching potential new treatments for depression, is leading two non-medication treatment trials with the Sydney Neurostimulation Centre research team at the Black Dog Institute.

The treatments being trialled are called Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). Don’t let the medical jargon freak you out. These names are basically just fancy ways of describing processes that use low electric currents to stimulate the parts of the brain that cease to function well when a person has depression.

tDCS is offered as an alternative to antidepressants. Patients must undergo twenty half-hour sessions over four weeks, in which electrodes on the scalp deliver constant, low currents to the underactive parts of the brain. It is a painless process, and involvement in the trial at the Black Dog Institute is free for participants.

TMS runs on a similar basis. Magnetic fields, generated by a simple coil placed on the head, are used to stimulate a small area of the brain. Participation in this course, however, is not free: sessions are $150 each, and the recommended course involves over twenty sessions over consecutive weekdays. A referral from a GP or psychiatrist is necessary.

Whether or not you or someone you know decides to partake in either of these trials, it is still extremely heartening to see that scientific advances in curing depression continue to be made. Depression is a silent killer, and we need to make it heard.

For more information regarding the tDCS and TMS trials, email TMSandDCS@unsw.edu.au, go to www.blackdoginstitute.org.au, or call 9382 2987.