Currently, the number of patients diagnosed with depression is estimated to be approximately 1.27 million in Japan, and when we include the number of patients with depression but if those who have not undergone psychiatrypsychiatric treatment are included, it would beis approximately 2.5 million in total. Furthermore, aboutapproximately 30% of them are said to be treatment-resistant, and thusmaking depression is becoming a national diseaseepidemic. Among them, these patients, those with severe depression usually need hospitalization in psychiatry, butrequire admission to a psychiatric ward. However, the urgent issue in psychiatric clinical practice for depression is that although the severity of depression itself is mild to moderate, some of these patients show ahave refractory and prolonged depression, that is calledtermed "treatment-resistant", which doesand their symptoms do not improve depressive symptoms withby conventional treatment. As a promising therapeutic methodsmethod for such a group of patients, in recent years, neuromodulation treatment including repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) has attracted attention and its possibilityit is expected as an alternative therapeutic strategiesstrategy. In this article, I would like to outlinewill discuss the effectiveness of neuromodulation for treatment-resistant depression.
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