The Geneva University Hospitals (HUG) are experimenting with a new approach to treating people with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) who resist all current treatments, whether they are medicated or in the form of psychotherapy. These refractory patients are subjected to deep brain stimulation.
The therapy consists of “implanting electrodes which deliver a low intensity electric current to the brain in order to modify the activity of these deep areas”, indicates the latest edition of the HUG magazine “Pulsations”, published on Thursday. One in ten patients with OCD could benefit from this treatment.
Research is also underway at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), with the support of the HUG Private Foundation, which aim to improve understanding of the neural networks involved in OCD. Psychiatrists have also validated, as part of a European program, this brain stimulation approach.
Objects connected to the rescue
HUG is also developing innovative solutions to treat people with OCD with the help of connected objects, mobile phone applications or virtual reality. The idea, according to “Pulsations”, is to design personalized scenarios exposing patients to their fears.
OCD are responses to unmanageable anxieties. The person in this situation responds by performing rituals that are said to reduce their anxiety. “Pulsations” cites the case of a woman who has an incessant need to make sure that she has closed the door of her apartment and who is obsessed with cleanliness.
OCD is said to affect 300,000 people in Switzerland. (Ps / nxp)
Created: 02.01.2020, 12:35
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