The Clinical TMS Society event round up

The Clinical TMS Society’s (CTMSS) 9th annual meeting took place on the 10th to the 12th June in Florida this year. The event brought together TMS providers, researchers, psychiatrists and other professionals to share updates and advances in TMS therapy. Hosting over 600 attendees face-to-face and via online sessions, we have selected our key take-aways from the event below.

TMS for addiction

The presentation ‘TMS in the Study and Treatment of Addiction: From Basic Studies to FDA Clearance’, by Abraham Zangen, PhD covered some of the latest evidence on TMS treatment for addiction including nicotine, alcohol and cocaine. The talk also highlighted the potential to treat heroin, methamphetamine, and marihuana although more research is needed.

At Smart TMS, we have been treating patients for various addictions for some time and have been gathering our own clinical data on the effectiveness of TMS specifically for cocaine addiction. This led to our Medical Director Dr Leigh Neal and colleagues to produce a research paper on the effectiveness of TMS for cocaine addiction. The paper can be accessed here – https://www.scirp.org/pdf/ojd_2020052709583319.pdf

Young people

We were pleased to see that there was a specific presentation on TMS for adolescents, presented by Paul Croarkin, DO. His presentation ‘Recent Advances in TMS for Adolescents and Young Adults’ highlighted the benefits of both TMS and sham treatment in adolescents which warrants further research. Our specialist CAMHS psychiatrist Dr Anastasia Tsakiri, oversees our patients who are under 18 years of age.

students mental health

SAINT protocol 

The Stanford Accelerated Intelligent Neuromodulation Therapy (SAINT) protocol has received a lot of attention with its potential to accelerate TMS treatment results, with patients reaching remission from resistant depression much more quickly. At the event, Dr Nolan Williams (MD) presented the results from a recent randomised controlled trial in which 19 out of 21 patients achieved remission at the end of five days of treatment of 10 sessions a day. We have recently piloted a clinical protocol based on the SAINT research and are pleased with the initial results. We are currently considering how this protocol could work for specific patients for whom the treatment may be beneficial. If you would like more information about this new protocol and our initial clinical results, please contact us at info@smarttms.co.uk

 

Our OCD research

At the event we were delighted to share not one, but two posters on our recent research in OCD, available below.

1) ‘Does Baseline Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Depression Scores, Age and Gender Predict Remission in Patients Receiving Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) for the Treatment of OCD?’, Lorelei-Jane Wyman BSc MBPsS, Harpreet Singh BSc MSc MBPsS, Dr Pegah Shojaii BSc MSc PhD and Dr Leigh Neal MB BCh FRCPsych MRCGP MD

2) ‘A Comparison of final Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (YBOCS) in patients receiving either Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) to the Right Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex + Supplementary Motor Area (rDLPFC + SMA) or Left Medial Orbitofrontal Cortex (FP1) for the treatment of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)’, Lorelei-Jane Wyman BSc MBPsS, Harpreet Singh BSc MSc MBPsS, Dr Pegah Shojaii BSc MSc PhD and Dr Leigh Neal MB BCh FRCPsych MRCGP MD

Final note

It was also great to see TMS Technicians acknowledged for their contribution to patient outcomes on the TMS Technician Best Practices Panel. From managing risk, goal setting and ongoing patient support, we appreciate the role our own team plays in the patient’s journey and ultimately their recovery.

The next annual meeting is set to take place between the 11th and 12th May 2022 in Chicago. For more information visit

https://www.clinicaltmssociety.org/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=152