TMS Therapy is a safe and effective treatment which delivers magnetic pulses, stimulating specific areas of the brain involved in mood regulation. It has shown to have long lasting benefits.
Synergy Specialist Clinic provides private consultations and specialises in complex and treatment resistant mood disorders, neuro-stimulation techniques and anxiety disorders including stress and PTSD.
Our friendly team will take you through a telephone or face-to-face screening to ensure you are suitable for TMS.
In this session, we will explain to you about the TMS process. It is important to us that we provide you with a good understanding of how TMS works and that you are comfortable with the therapy process. We will also gather information regarding your conditions and medications prior to commencement and gaining your consent. Following consent, we will establish "Resting Motor Threshold" which is a measure of strength of magnetic stimulus required for each individual.
You will have approximately 30 sessions in total. This typically occurs over 4 weeks and 5 days per week.
We will collect information regarding your mental state and symptoms at the beginning of treatment as well as send a report to your GP and/or other healthcare professionals involved. Your acute treatment will end at the end of Week 4 unless you move to the tapering phase which is recommended. The tapering phase typically lasts 2-4 weeks and is when we reduce session frequency.
Once you have finished your treatment sessions, we re-collect information regarding your symptoms and mental state. This information is sent in a comprehensive report to your GP and other healthcare professionals (as required).
All our services can be accessed through private funding.
Please contact our team for further pricing and information.
TMS is usually approved if you are currently under a WorkCover claim.
Funding can be accessed via selected insurance providers. Please enquire with your health fund.
Our friendly team are happy to assist in liaison with your insurance provider.
Medicare rebates are available as of 1st November 2021.
For further information, please contact our admin team.
Subsidised fees are available for those who received Aged Pension, Disability Support Pension and/or are experiencing financial hardship.
TMS is usually approved if you hold a DVA Health Card.
To be eligible for MBS-Funded rTMS treatment, a patient must meet the following criteria:
1. Be at least 18 years of age
2. Be diagnosed with Major Depressive Episode
3. Have failed to receive satisfactory improvement for the Major Depressive Episode despite the adequate trialling of at least two different classes of anti-depressant medications, unless contraindicated.
4. Have also undertaken psychological therapy unless inappropriate; and
5. Have not received rTMS treatment previously in either a public or private setting.
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) is an effective treatment for depression approved in Australia and worldwide for treatment of depression and many other mental health conditions e.g. anxiety disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), chronic pain and auditory hallucinations.
TMS involves delivering repetitive magnetic pulses to certain areas of your scalp. These pulses have cascading downstream effect on your underlying brain structures, helping in making stronger connections in networks of brain responsible for recovery from mental health problems.
TMS is considered to be one of the safest treatments known for depression. Medications are often associated with troublesome side-effects which can impact on your life. Some minor side-effects associated with TMS are slight discomfort on your scalp, ringing in ears (transient) and twitching sensation under your skin. Seizure is extremely rare side effect, however, the number of seizure cases reported worldwide is in single digits. There are no known long-term side-effects.
TMS has been researched for nearly 30 years and used clinically for over 12 years. It has been shown to be very effective treatment for depression and many other mental conditions. It often works when when medications and psychological treatments haven’t. In our experience, in some cases it has worked even when ECT treatment had failed.
No. TMS is painless treatment. You may experience some discomfort but there is no need for needle prick or incision.
Treatment would need to be delivered 20-30 times at a frequency of 3-5 days a week. Each session can last for 20-45 minutes approximately depending on the type of protocol we use. We tend to taper down last few sessions to minimise risk of relapse.
TMS is very different to ECT. ECT requires anaesthesia (to put you to sleep) and can be associated with anaesthesia related side-effects and temporary memory disturbances.
During TMS, you will be awake, fully alert and be able to listen to your music whilst sitting on a relaxing chair. TMS has been shown to improve your concentration in healthy volunteers.
No, we advise you to continue on your regular medication regime. Some medications (e.g. high doses of Valium) may impact on effectiveness of TMS hence we may ask you to reduce or stop these before treatment.
The noise level created by TMS machine is much lower than MRI machines. You wear earplugs during therapy which makes noise negligible.
Absolutely. There is no contraindication to driving.
That’s your wish. We do not need a family member to be with you for treatment.
Most patients who have been followed up after a year of TMS treatment remained well. Some patients may require ‘maintenance TMS’ which requires you to have treatment at either weekly to fortnightly intervals to remain well.