Stimulation Technologies For Treatment Resistant Depression

Abstract

Treatment resistant depression is a debilitating disease that affects millions of people globally. For these patients, conventional antidepressants won’t give satisfactory relief of symptoms. Recent advancements in medical imaging have contributed to better understanding of depression pathology and brought alternative treatment methods. These stimulation technologies have not been used as a first-line treatment for depression but the interest for them have grown and studies around the world are trying to make them more viable and safer treatment methods. In this literature review five different stimulation technologies are compared for their efficacy, feasibility and patient tolerability. To better understand the working principles, some background information is given to the reader about brain anatomy and the effects of depression. The result of this comparison shows correlations between FDA approval and the efficacy of the treatment. Electroconvulsive treatment and transcranial magnetic stimulation seem to be effective and safe treatment options for treatment resistant depression. Other methods are either invasive and therefore can only be suggested when other methods fail, and others have not yet proven their efficacy and safety.