IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2015 - 5

EDITORIAL

Katina Michael

Mental Health,
Implantables, and
Side Effects

hen I was 8 years
of age my older sister who was 8 years
my senior was diagnosed with paranoid
schizophrenia. As a result, my family spent quite a few years visiting
hospitals and mental health facilities on a daily basis. It is painful to
reflect on that period, as our whole
world was rocked by this illness.
My once vibrant, skilful, dynamic,
energetic, extremely kind, and topof-her-class sister was plagued by a
disease process of schizophrenia
that would have her attempting to
take her own life on several occasions, battle with hearing voices,
go into a state of catatonia for long
periods of time, and suffer severe
bouts of anxiety and depression.
The onset of my sister's schizophrenia was spontaneous, during
what should have been the most
carefree years of her life. We will
never know what triggered her illness but for whatever reason that
this "thing" landed in our household,
we learned to come to terms with
its impact. I grew up with an understanding that, in life, there are some
things we can fix, and some things
we cannot. There are some things
we can explain, and some things we
cannot. Sometimes medical science
has the answers, and sometimes it
does not. It does not mean I give up
on the potential for a cure or therapy

for various forms of mental illness,
but I am more wary than most about
silver bullet solutions.
In the 30 years my sister has lived
with schizophrenia there have been
numerous incremental innovations
that have been beneficial to some
sufferers. First, there have been
advancements in pharmacology and
in the composition of antidepressants so that they are more effective. But pharmaceutical treatments
have not helped everyone, especially
those sufferers who do not take their
medication on a regular basis. Many
persons living with depression who
come on and off antidepressants
without seeking medical advice are at
an increased risk of suicide.
Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT),
an empirically-based psychotherapy, has also aided increasing numbers of patients to better cope with
their condition. Yet CBT is not given
the same media attention as the
new range of dynamic neural stimulators, commonly dubbed "brain
implants," now on the market [1].
For sufferers who are diagnosed
with major depressive disorder

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2015.2434471
Date of publication: 19 June 2015

june 2015

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IEEE Technology and Society Magazine

(MDD), and for whom antidepressants and CBT simply do not work,
doctors have turned to the prospect
of somatic therapies. These include:
electroconvulsive therapy (ECT),
repetitive transcranial magnetic
stimulation (rTMS), vagus nerve stimulation (VNS), and deep brain stimulation (DBS). If an individual does not
respond to ECT (and only fifty per
cent do), they are said to have treatment-resistant depression (TRD) [2].
In plain language, ECT is when
electricity is applied to the scalp
generally over a treatment period
of between 2-4 weeks, several sessions per week. rMTS treatment
goes for 4-6 weeks, of 5 sessions
per week and uses a fluctuating
magnetic field from electromagnetic
coil placed outside the skull sending
an electrical current to the brain.
VNS and DBS are more intrusive procedures targeting specific
parts of the brain [3]. In VNS, an
electrode is wrapped around the
left vagus nerve in the neck and
stimulation occurs about every 5
minutes for about 30 seconds. The
battery packs sit under the skin of

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2015