What is Ketamine and what it is used for?
At Novomed Ketamine is used in various fields of medical care. It is a medication that is used to induce loss of consciousness, or anesthesia. Traditionally, ketamine was introduced to the medical world as an agent that could induce a unique state of changed consciousness with limited side effects, which could be repeated with multiple administrations.
Over the year’s ketamine has increasingly been used in settings outside of the operating theatre, widening its use to emergency medicine, psychiatry and addiction medicine and pain relief.
In an anesthetic setting, ketamine’s quick onset and hemodynamic stability (flow of blood within body) gives it popularity where its qualities are particularly advantageous. The following pediatric patients and pain relief or sedation.
Psychiatric Uses of Ketamine
Ketamine has been receiving widespread attention as an alternative treatment for depression. Traditional medicines take time for the drug to take an effect on the body, for some patient’s traditional drugs don’t work quick enough or are not effective enough in such cases ketamine has shown to a drastic improvement. The ketamine is administered through IV infusion in the arm and effects last up to a week.
In addition to depression, Ketamine has shown to ease symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This is a mental health disorder that people can develop after experiencing a trauma in their life such as combat trauma. Ketamine is administered via IV and requires top-ups on a regular basis to maintain the effects of ketamine in the patient.
Ketamine and treating addiction
The most advanced use of ketamine has recently been discovered, the results have been astonishing and could change the face of substance rehabilitation treatment. An integrated psychiatric approach was used in the study in order to help a group of alcoholic participants reset their memory, behavioral and physiological process linked to the association of alcohol.
The results of the study showed those who received a single dose of ketamine via IV alongside cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) that focused on resetting drinking related memories. These participants had a significant reduction in the urge to drink and reduced their alcohol consumption in comparison to those who received the ketamine alone or a placebo infusion.
This research is groundbreaking and can be used to treat substance abuse in the form of integrated psychiatry. As this treatment is the most progressive way in which ketamine has been used, it is not available in the UAE. The Novomed team is working on the legalities of this treatment to ensure our patients can benefit from the most advanced treatments available.
