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New non-drug treatment available for depression in ENC

PRE News & Ideas | By George Olsen
Published September 9, 2013 at 6:06 AM EDT

INTRO – A new treatment for depression is now available in eastern North Carolina. George Olsen has more.

Psychiatrists at the Brody School of Medicine are working with a new treatment called repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, or rTMS. The treatment is an alternative for those suffering  from depression who don’t benefit from antidepressants. The therapy is administered daily for 37 minutes over a 4-6 week period on an outpatient basis. A small device resting on the patient’s head delivers focused magnetic stimulation to the left prefrontal cortex of the brain, an area thought to be involved with regulating mood.  A press release from East Carolina University says in a controlled trial patients treated with rTMS experienced an average reduction in depression symptoms of about 22 percent compared to a 9 percent reduction for patients receiving inactive treatment. I’m George Olsen.
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George Olsen
George Olsen is a 1977 Havelock High School graduate. He received his B.A. in Broadcast Journalism from the University of South Carolina in 1982 where he got his first taste of non-commercial radio working for their student station WUSC. After graduation he worked about five years in commercial radio before coming to work at Public Radio East where he has remained since outside of a nearly 3-year stint as jazz and operations coordinator at WUAL in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in the early 1990s. On his return to eastern North Carolina he hosted classical music for Public Radio East before moving into the Morning Edition host position and now can be heard on All Things Considered. He also hosts and produces The Sound, five hours of Americana, Roots Rock and Contemporary Folk weekday evenings on PRE Public Radio East News & Ideas, and is a news and feature producer for Public Radio East.
See stories by George Olsen