Tiredness in Acute and Chronic Depression Treated with Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

Background: Tiredness is used in some characterizations of majordepressive disorder (MDD). Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) lowers allsymptoms of MDD. Objective: To explore whether, 1) a visual analogue scale (VAS)for tiredness is a valid and reliable measure of a feature of MDD, and 2) TMStreatment reduces subjective tiredness occurring in MDD. Method: A naturalisticstudy of treatment with 10 Hz TMS. Completed pre- and post-treatment: HAMD-6,a visual analogue scale (VAS-6), the Clinical Global Impression – Severity (CGI-S)and a ‘VAS-tiredness’. Two groups received TMS. Acute course: N=52 participantssuffering acute MDD, received 20 treatment courses (total courses 86). Relapseprevention (RP) course: N=26 participants suffering chronic relapsing MDD receivedscheduled episodic courses over 3 days; (total courses 266). VAS-tiredness scoreswere compared with the standardized tool results. Results: There were significantmedium to large correlations between pre- and post-treatment VAS-tiredness and thestandard depression measures (HAMD-6 .406 to .447, VAS-6 .446 to .525, CGI-S.348 to .407; all pF(1,350)=147.3,pConclusion: -tiredness is a valid measure of afeature of MDD. VAS-tiredness provides potentially useful information and complementsstandard mood tools. TMS treatment can reduce tiredness in MDD.