what they said (Hover the mouse cursor over underlined words for more info)

It's a new frontier for psychiatric illness: brain pacemakers that promise to act as antidepressants by changing how patients' nerve circuitry fires.

Scientists already know the power of these devices to block the tremors of Parkinson's disease and related illnesses; more than 40,000 such patients worldwide have the implants.

But psychiatric illnesses are much more complex and the new experiments with deep brain stimulation, or DBS, are in their infancy. Only a few dozen patients with severe depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder have been treated in closely monitored...

The original article can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/article/431139

how did it rate? (more information)

what we said (Hover the mouse cursor over underlined words for more info)

Overall, this article appears to present the evidence in a reasonable fashion. The article was clear in stating that the novel and expensive brain pacemaker treatment has been designed for patients who have exhausted all other treatment options (i.e. medication, psychotherapy, and shock treatment).

Unfortunately little information about adverse effects is provided in the report. Although the article did acknowledge that the treatment was both invasive and risky, the potential side effects of the implant itself were not discussed.

The article successfully included information from several sources, however did not provide details regarding the availability of this treatment in Canada.

public forum

voice your opinion in the forum

• All comments and feedback submitted to Media Doctor are subject to editorial approval before being made viewable by the public. It may take up to a week for your comments to be approved. Additionally, no response will be given to questions posed in public comments. Media Doctor does not provide medical advice, or answers to medical questions posed by the public.
• If you provide your email address it will not be displayed to the general public.
• Comments may be edited by Media Doctor to remove defamatory or sensitive statements, and brand names.
• Required fields are marked with an asterisk (*).