Depression is a serious medical illness affecting more than 14 million American adults every year (1). Often a debilitating disorder, depression results in a persistent state of sadness or loss of interest or pleasure which interferes with an individual’s thoughts, behavior, mood, and physical health.
Depression can be a lethal disease. Each year in the US, over 30,000 people die by suicide, 60% of whom suffer from depression (2). Overall, women are almost twice as likely as men to suffer from depression; however, some experts feel that depression in men is under-reported (3).
Depression has no racial, ethnic or socioeconomic boundaries. About two-thirds of those who experience an episode of depression will have at least one other episode in their lives.
The economic burden of major depressive disorder among U.S. adults was an estimated $236 billion in 2018, an increase of more than 35% since 2010 (year 2020 values), according to research published in early May in the journal Pharmacoeconomics. The World Health Organization cites Depression as a leading cause of disability in the world. (06) Greenberg PE, Fournier AA, Sisitsky T, Simes M, Berman R, Koenigsberg SH, Kessler RC. The Economic Burden of Adults with Major Depressive Disorder in the United States (2010 and 2018). Pharmacoeconomics. 2021 Jun;39(6):653-665. doi: 10.1007/s40273-021-01019-4. Epub 2021 May 5. PMID: 33950419; PMCID: PMC8097130. (07) Depression (who.int)
While the exact cause of depression is not known, the leading scientific theory is that depression is caused by decreased activity in the neural networks of the brain that regulate emotion and motivation. Increasing levels of neurotransmitters in the brain has been found to reactivate these neural networks, or create new networks. Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers that send signals between brain cells.
Depression is most often treated with antidepressant medications. It is believed that antidepressant medications work by increasing the levels of these neurotransmitters.
TMS offers additional treatment options for people struggling with depression despite traditional medication therapy. More than 4 million patients do not receive adequate benefit from antidepressants and/or cannot tolerate the side effects caused by them. For these patients, they need a new way back.
TMS is the breakthrough technology for non-drug treatment of depression and promises to be the future of psychiatric treatment—providing hope for patients for whom medication treatment and psychotherapy have failed to achieve satisfactory results. At TMS of Knoxville, we have successfully treated many patients with treatment resistant depression
