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This week we will discuss the use of Ketamine for treating Depression.  Our guest for this week's show is Karen DeCocker, DNP, PMHNP, CNM

Karen DeCocker is the Director of Advanced Practice Providers at Stella overseeing the assessment team. She helps to identify which innovative biological medical treatments & virtual therapies can help relieve symptoms of anxiety, depression, PTSD & traumatic brain injury.  After completing a virtual assessment of each patient, Dr. DeCocker and her team analyze the medical, biological, psychological & social factors to provide personalized treatment recommendations across Stella’s advanced protocols such as Dual Sympathetic Reset (advanced stellate ganglion block), Ketamine Infusion Therapy, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), Spravato, integration therapy, and more.

Dr. DeCocker’s priority is the patient’s outcome. She became a nurse practitioner in 2007 after 10 years of hospital nursing experience.

 

"As rates of depression and anxiety have increased dramatically, people have sought therapies outside the standard regimen of oral antidepressants and talk therapy. Beginning in the mid-2010s, more and more doctors started offering ketamine as a treatment for depression. In 2019, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved esketamine as a treatment for forms of depression that haven’t improved with standard antidepressants (like citalopram/Celexa or bupropion/Wellbutrin). Given over ten years of experience with ketamine as a researcher and physician at the Yale School of Medicine, in this article I try to answer some basic questions prospective patients often have about ketamine/esketamine. Please note that the information below assumes that ketamine is given at a dose of approximately 0.5mg/kg over 40 minutes. Doses significantly higher than this might have very different side effects and would not be permitted in clinical studies by the Food and Drug Administration."  (Source: Psychology Today)