What is PTSD?
PTSD, or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, is a psychiatric disorder that can occur following the experience or witnessing of a life-threatening events such as military combat, natural disasters, terrorist incidents, serious accidents, or physical or sexual assault in adult or childhood. People who suffer often relive the experience through nightmares and flashbacks, have difficulty sleeping, and feel estranged. Symptoms can be severe enough and last long enough to significantly impair the person’s daily life.
The lifetime prevalence of PTSD is estimated to be 7.8% in the United States.
Symptoms
People with PTSD experience three different kinds of symptoms. The first set of symptoms involves reliving the trauma in some way such as becoming upset when confronted with a traumatic reminder or thinking about the trauma when you are trying to do something else. The second set of symptoms involves either staying away from places or people that remind you of the trauma, isolating from other people, or feeling numb. The last set of symptoms includes things such as feeling on guard, irritable, or startling easily.
Treatment
PTSD can be treated with psychotherapy and medicines such as antidepressants. Although medications and psychotherapy have been shown to reduce anxiety symptoms, one third of patients remain symptomatic in spite of treatment.
TMS for PTSD
Recent studies show significant improvement in PTSD and General Anxiety Disorder (GAD) symptoms when treated with rTMS (repetitive Transcranial magnetic stimulation). TMS therapy is FDA approved to treat depression and various studies have shown its efficacy in treating symptoms of PTSD as well.
Noninvasive Brain Stimulation With High-Frequency and Low-Intensity Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Treatment for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.
Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 2010;71(8):992
A double-blind, placebo-controlled phase II trial conducted between October 2005 and July 2008, 30 patients with DSM-IV–diagnosed PTSD were randomly assigned to receive 1 of the following treatments: active 20 Hz rTMS of the right DLPFC, active 20 Hz rTMS of the left DLPFC, or sham rTMS.
Results show that both active conditions—20 Hz rTMS of left and right DLPFC—induced a significant decrease in PTSD symptoms as indexed by the PTSD, however, right rTMS induced a larger effect as compared to left rTMS. In addition, there was a significant improvement of mood after left rTMS and a significant reduction of anxiety following right rTMS. Improvements in PTSD symptoms were long lasting; effects were still significant at the 3-month follow-up. Finally, neuropsychological evaluation showed that active 20 Hz rTMS is not associated with cognitive worsening and is safe for use in patients with PTSD.
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