Ketamine, an expecting antidepressant

There are many options to treat depression, as I mentioned repeatedly.

My past entry: Does aspirin destroy your depression?

My past entry: Treatment of depression: multi-angle approach

My past entry: Behavioral Activation is equally effective to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

My past entry: Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, a new way to protect you from depression

And one of expecting regimens is ketamine, an anesthetic agent.

The result of latest clinical trials suggests the effectiveness and tolerability of ketamine for reducing depressive symptoms in patients with treatment-resistant depression. The response rate was up to 40%. It is amazing considering the fact only one-third of patients, even who are treatment-naive, respond to initial treatment with an antidepressant.

Independent: Ketamine helps patients with severe depression 'when nothing else works', doctors say

On the other hand, ketamine has a dependency. Some people misuse ketamine as a recreational drug. The indication of ketamine prescription to depressive patients should cautiously be addressed. In Japan, abuse of methylphenidate was issued the other day, leading to the dismissal of it for depression.

As well, its continuity of the antidepressive effect needs to be examined in a longitudinal view. Depression is a disease easy to recur. Though I am not familiar with its clinical usage, ketamine taking for a long term can be harmful. So far, several resolutions have been developed to treat depression. Most of them, however, lack long-term effectiveness, unfortunately.