Word: ocd
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Using DBS in severely brain-damaged patients may be a brand-new breakthrough, but the technology has already proved itself as a treatment for the tremors of Parkinson's disease, is nearing Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and is in clinical trials as a therapy for depression. Studies suggest it could also help control symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, dystonia--or paralytic muscle rigidity--epilepsy and even some addictions. "DBS is like a pacemaker for the brain," says Cleveland Clinic neurosurgeon Ali Rezai, who performed the operation on the brain-damaged man. "We pinpoint...
...Battling a World of Worry Jeffrey Kluger's story on obsessive compulsive disorder was superb, especially in detailing possible new treatments and emphasizing the deleterious effects of this malady on the family [Aug. 20]. Many people with ocd fear the rigors of treatment even though they have watched their family life deteriorate as a result of their condition. A method to persuade ocd sufferers to seek relief is needed, as they would if they got a diagnosis of a life-threatening disease. Ferdinand K. Levy, Atlanta...
...more reluctant to prescribe medication, but they are careful not to stay too long with ERP alone if it's not producing results. "The longer a child struggles with an illness, the more impact it's going to have," says Dr. John Piacentini, director of UCLA's child OCD clinic. Still, there are some people--kids and adults--whose OCD is so acute that more extreme methods are needed, such as hospitalization, more intensive exposure therapy and other medications...
...brain stimulation (DBS), in which electrodes are implanted in the brain and connected by wires embedded in the skin to a pacemaker-like device in the chest. Low doses of current can then be applied as needed to calm the turmoil in the regions of the brain that cause OCD. The procedure sounds extreme--and it is--but it's already been used in about 35,000 people worldwide to treat Parkinson's disease, and FDA approval to use DBS for OCD as well is pending. "Many of our OCD patients are able to re-engage in life rather than...
...vast majority of people, the treatment never needs to go so far. OCD, for all the suffering it inflicts, is nothing more than the brain doing something it's supposed to do--warning you of danger--but doing it very badly. Living in the world means living with risks: real ones, imagined ones, exaggerated ones. That's not an easy lesson, but it's a powerful lesson--one that, once learned, can offer a paradoxical state of peace...