In recent years, overwhelming evidence has substantiated the potential benefits of ketamine in treating psychiatric disorders, particularly depression and chronic pain. Extensive research has indicated that ketamine can provide rapid and significant improvements of depressive symptoms, even for patients with treatment resistant depression. Additionally, clinical data suggests that ketamine treatment can effectively treat many types of chronic pain, including treatment of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome.
Ketamine has many clinical applications for expanding treatment options for mental health disorders like depression. The incredibly rapid onset of antidepressant effects that ketamine infusions produce is of utmost clinical importance to patients with depression suffering from suicidal ideation. A recent systematic review and meta-analysis concluded that single-dose intravenous ketamine infusions remarkably reduce patients’ suicidal thoughts as soon as 2 hours after infusion.
The results from another recent systematic review suggest that Treatment-Resistant Depression patients treated with ketamine infusions showed improved complex and simple working memory, improved processing speed and improved verbal learning memory. These results provide further evidence for the safety and efficacy of using therapeutic ketamine in treatment plans for patients with depression.
