Doctor likens ketamine treatment to a steroid boost for the brain

Ketamine can ease the suffering of people with treatment-resistant depression, but lasting improvements in quality of life depend on patients’ continued psychological effort, emergency medicine doctor Lowan Stewart told ERR.

Stewart compared ketamine treatment to a steroid that gives the brain’s “muscles” an initial boost. He founded a ketamine clinic in New Mexico in 2016, after about 17 years working in emergency medicine. Before that, he studied emergency medicine in microgravity in Moscow and led the work of other doctors in the United States.

Stewart said he turned to mental health partly because he came to see quality of life as just as important as extending life. Emergency departments in the United States also treat psychiatric emergencies, including acute psychosis, suicidal patients and poisoning, he noted.

He also wanted to address mental health problems on a broader scale. Treating one person, he said, is like bailing water from a leaking boat: necessary, but repairing the boat would be better. He has spent the past decade working to build health care infrastructure that could improve how mental health needs are addressed.

Stewart said ketamine should be considered a medical tool, despite the tendency to treat mind-altering substances as drugs of abuse rather than medicines. He pointed to amphetamine use in treating attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, cocaine as an anaesthetic in eye and nose surgery, morphine for severe pain, and alcohol as a treatment for antifreeze poisoning.