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By Yohann Harvey Simard – Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
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The Alma hospital psychiatry department has acquired a repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation device. A considerable asset in the treatment of depression and obsessive compulsive disorders.
With an investment of $125,000, the Alma hospital is the first in Lac-Saint-Jean to get its hands on this type of medical equipment.
“I had been trying for several years to obtain this device, which had already existed in the United States for a very long time. It’s a great gain for the population,” rejoices Luc Cossette, psychiatrist and head of the psychiatry department at Alma Hospital.
The clinician explains that the new device overcomes the limitations of other types of treatment, such as medication, which “does not work all the time”.
“We also have other alternatives, such as seismotherapy (formerly called electroshock). But even though it works very well, tremor therapy is more invasive. You have to go to the operating theater because it takes the intervention of anesthesiologists to put the clientele to sleep. »
In addition, unlike tremor therapy, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation treatment can target more specific areas of the brain.
“You can really send magnetic ripples into areas that modulate mood, that is, areas that are most at fault in depressive disorders. It will create an electric current which will have the effect of resuscitating these areas, which are often in a situation of hypofunction. »
Also, it is a treatment that can be done in just three minutes, compared to seismotherapy sessions that can last up to an hour.
Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation treatments are spread over a period of four to six weeks, up to approximately 20 to 30 treatments.
According to Luc Cossette, the new device improves the condition of 50% of patients refractory to alternative treatments, which is “significant”.
New psychiatrists and the pandemic
In addition, Luc Cossette points out that the arrival of the new device is timely as cases of anxiety and depression have increased during the pandemic.
In addition, he adds that two new psychiatrists joined the psychiatry department of the Alma hospital precisely because of the purchase of the device, made possible thanks to the Fondation de l’Hôtel-Dieu d’Alma and to the donations collected.
“The young people who arrive are stimulated by our dynamism and our novelties. It is a very interesting recruiting factor. »
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