The data is worrying regarding mental health in our country. For example, according to Health, “depressive disorder appears in 4.1% of the population (5.9% in women and 2.3% in men), increasing the frequency progressively with age until reaching 12% of the women and 5% of men aged 75 to 84. Likewise, the ravages of the pandemic are not helpful, less so among young people, “the pandemic has caused an increase of up to 47% in mental health disorders in minors,” we read in the Spanish Association of Pediatrics.
The passage of time has broken down the taboo of talking about mental illnesses, but that does not prevent them from existing. The first step before a symptom is to go to the specialistthe professional will take action on the matter and decide which treatment is the most appropriate in each case.
Among all the drugs on the market, we now add the antidepressant nasal sprayfrom Jansenn, intended for the treatment of severe depression that has just received the approval of Health.
Under the name of Spravato, this spray is about esketamine nasal spray. As we read in Medical Writing, it is the “first and only treatment approved in Spain for treatment-resistant major depressive disorder (DRT), which is in nasal spray format.”
Aimed at patients who have received two other treatments, and have not given the expected result, this spray is fast acting. Henar Hevia, medical director of Janssen Spain, explains that “traditional antidepressants do effect between 5 and 8 weeks, during which time the risk of suicide increases”. In contrast, this spray “begins to show positive responses 24 hours after its administration and after four weeks the depressive symptoms subside in a large number of patients. “
this drug will be for hospital use and it will only be dispensed in the pharmacies of the authorized centers, requiring the supervision of the professional for its administration. For now, it is a treatment for adults, but its use is being studied in children and people over 65 years of age, explained Josep Antoni Ramos-Quiroga, head of the Psychiatry Service at the Vall d’Hebrón University Hospital.
Ramos-Quiroga has collaborated in the birth of this spray and affirms that “69 percent of patients have a positive response and 53 percent remit the symptoms”
Among the latest relevant data, it should be noted that the Medicines Price Commission (CIPM) had denied the financing of this drug on two occasions throughout this 2022. The reasons, according to Heraldo, were the “uncertainties regarding its therapeutic value and rationalization criteria for public spending intended for pharmaceutical provision and budgetary impact on the National Health System (SNS)”.
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Photographs | Unplash (Gemma Chua-Tran, Emily Underworld, Anthony Tran)