OCD Treatment: Other Methods

Other methods of trying to cure obsessive compulsive disorder are mostly used when methods based on therapy, drugs and alternative drugs have failed. This normally happens with more severe forms of obsessive compulsive disorder.

One such treatment is by using tranquilizers. These, as stated above, are prescribed to people exhibiting severe OCD. It is considered that tranquilizers help diminish compulsions by relaxing the muscles of the body. However, tranquilizers must be used cautiously since they are habit-forming if overused.

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has also been found useful in treating refractory and severe cases of obsessive compulsive disorder. Don’t know what that means? It’s just a fancy name for electroshocks. It is a very controversial treatment method and it is based on administering anesthetized patients electrically induced seizures. It is important to know that a large scale study on ECT concluded that such therapy has adverse side-effects on the patients such as memory loss or learning impairment and these side-effects persist at least six months after treatment and even in perpetuity.

Another method known as a treatment for OCD is psychosurgery. This is also a “last resort” method. In this case, a surgical lesion is made on the cingulate cortex. According to a study, 30% of patients showed marked improvement after such a procedure. Psychosurgery replaced lobotomy which had severe side effects like unexpected brain damage and strange memory loss. In psychosurgery, magnetic resonance imaging is used to select the proper place in the brain in which to perform surgery.

Two other surgical options are deep-brain stimulation and vagus nerve stimulation. Deep-brain stimulation is a surgical treatment whereby a device called a brain pacemaker is implanted. This device sends electrical impulses to parts of the brain. One big plus for this method is that its effects are reversible. On the other hand, vagus nerve stimulation is using an implanted stimulator that is sending impulses to the left vagus nerve located in the neck through a lead wire that is implanted under the skin. Both methods have shown promising results in treating obsessive compulsive disorder but no clear clinical study has been made in order to draw a clear conclusion so one should take this with a grain of salt and one should ask for advice from an expert.

This concludes our article on the treatment of OCD through other methods. If you want to add on top of what we wrote here or if you’d like to share your experience regarding treating obsessive compulsive disorder through other methods then don’t hesitate to post a comment.

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