Tulsa Hospital Works To Better Help People With Major Depressive Disorder

Parkside Psychiatric Hospital and Clinic is working to help treat people with Major Depressive Disorder. Doctors there are treating people with a drug called "Spravato."

What's unique about Spravato is that it isn't an oral antidepressant but rather, a nasal spray.

Stephanie McQuarters, a mental health practitioner at Parkside, said the hospital is using Spravato to help people with treatment resistant depression. That's a type of disorder that doesn't respond to traditional treatments alone such as oral antidepressants.

McQuarters said Spravato works as an enhancer to oral antidepressants. This means the nasal spray is taken alongside the oral antidepressant to help ease the symptoms of severe depression better.

"We do know that it enhances the oral antidepressant because if the patient is not on the oral antidepressant, and they are just taking Spravato, they do still have the depression at that time. So it is an enhancer and it helps re-boost," McQuarters said.

When a patient is given Spravato at Parkside, that patient must then wait in a low-stimulus observation room since the effects of the spray can act as a sedative. McQuarters said most people who take the medication see positive results.

"We have 17 patients now, and out of the patients we have, we have heard nothing but good reports. The patient states that there is a decrease of anxiety, and most of the time, the depression has gone away," McQuarters said.

For someone to qualify for Spravato, McQuarters said a patient must be referred, go through an interview process and have already tried multiple antidepressants without any positive results.