Antidepressant medications have limited efficacy and significant safety concerns in
geriatric depression [
[1]
]. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is an effective tool in the
treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD), is non-systemic and side effects are
few and generally mild [
[2]
]. However, due to a limited body of literature on the use of rTMS in geriatric patients,
and concerns that age-related brain changes incur greater treatment resistance, patients
with late life depression are frequently denied a safe and potentially life-saving
antidepressant treatment.To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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References
- Research advances in geriatric depression.World Psychiatry. 2009; 8: 140-149
- Daily left prefrontal repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation for acute treatment of medication-resistant depression.Am J Psychiatry. 2011; 168: 356-364
- Treatment of vascular depression using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation.Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2008; 65: 268-276
- Safety and benefits of distance-adjusted prefrontal transcranial magnetic stimulation in depressed patients 55-75 years of age: a pilot study.Depress Anxiety. 2004; 19: 249-256
- Neurocognitive correlates of response to treatment in late-life depression.Am J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2008; 16: 752-759
- Affective illness, dementia, and pseudodementia.J Clin Psychiatry. 1984; 45: 99-103
- The effects of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation on cognitive performance in treatment-resistant depression. A systematic review.Neuropsychobiology. 2015; 71: 125-139
- Brain stimulation in the treatment of late-life severe mental illness other than unipolar nonpsychotic depression.Am J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2014; 22: 216-240
- Transcranial magnetic stimulation for geriatric depression: promises and pitfalls.World J Psychiatry. 2015; 5: 170-181
Article info
Publication history
Published online: December 10, 2015
Received:
November 2,
2015
Identification
Copyright
© 2015 Elsevier Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
