Sunday, June 01, 2008

Magnetic Therapy


















I have worked with several individuals who have not had success with the combination of talk therapy and medication to reduce their psychological symptoms.

It is always disheartening when this occurs. And when it does, I always recommend looking into alternative therapies to address what conventional treatments can not.

One of the more recent alternative therapies uses magnets. Yes, that's right, magnets.

This illustration above shows the visual cortex of the brain during Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

rTMS, as it is called, is a non-invasive brain stimulation technique that increases neural blood flow in the brain. The procedure is not a surgical one, and should not be confused with Electroconvulsive Therapy















In rTMS, a doctor holds a device over a specified area of the brain. Magnetic currents pass through the scalp, sending bursts of electrical fields deep into the brain to alter neural activity.

rTMS has been used for Treatment Resistant Depression for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and to reduce Schizophrenic Hallucinations - as well as to treat medical conditions like stroke, migraine, Parkinson's and Epilepsy, just to name a few.

Results have been quite variable, but it could hold great possibilities for many who have not had success with more conventional treatments.


Reference

Paul B. Fitzgerald, Sarah Fountain, Zafiris J. Daskalakis (December 2006). "A comprehensive review of the effects of rTMS on motor cortical excitability and inhibition". Clinical Neurophysiology 117 (12): 2584–2596. doi:10.1016/j.clinph.2006.06.712. PMID 16890483.
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