TMS Treatment & Setup

All right, Kenny, we’re going to get you set for the treatment today. We’re going to do what’s called some motor mapping, which is to identify how much energy it takes to get through your hair, scalp, and skull to get to the brain.

So, in order to do that, I need to fit you with a cap that’ll give us some good location spots to treat. I’m going to measure right between your eyes to the back of your head. This is from a spot called your nasion to the inion, which is right here between the eyes to this bump that’s back here at the base of the skull.

This is going to be your cap. See this red dot right here? It’s going to go right from where I measured. Yep, and then you’re going to pull it up over your head. Your ears go in those holes, and then strap it under your chin. Okay, while you’re doing that, I’ll get this set up. Okay, that fit looks pretty good.

This is the treatment coil, and this is what’s going to help generate that magnetic field that we’re going to be using to treat. I want to let you know what it feels like before I put it on your head. I’m going to send a single pulse through your arm here so you get a sense of what that feels like.

That’s what I’m looking for—you see the little hand movement? Some people say it feels like a TENS unit if you’ve ever had one of those at the physical therapy office. Next thing I want to do then is I’m going to come up here on the scalp and do the same thing for your brain, but we’re going to try and control the movements of your right hand.

We’re going to target what’s called the motor strip of your brain, and that’s the part of your brain that controls movements. So, what I’m going to have you do is turn your right hand over and just try and relax it. I might have to do a little bit of moving around to isolate exactly what I’m looking for, but I’m going to send a single pulse here and just kind of see how your hand moves.

Okay, so we’re in a good spot, right? Now, I want to have you try and just make a little fist and give me a thumbs up just like that for just a second. I’m going to send another pulse.

We’re trying to get that thumb to move. What I want to do is try and decrease the amount of energy that I’m sending to be able to get that thumb to move just a little bit so that I know I’m still hitting the right part of the brain, but doing it with an amount that would be needed to hit the brain without overdoing it.

See, we’re getting just a little bit smaller movements each time, and what I want to see is little to no response. Right about there is where we want to be. So, what we’ve done there is find your threshold: how much energy does it take to get to your brain?

Next thing we’ll do is we’ll start with the treatments. So, let me make a couple of adjustments here. You ready to start? Let’s get going.