RAPID5: Rapid Acceleration Process for Intensive Treatment of PTSD in 5 Days
VA Office of Research and Development
Summary
Veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) need more effective treatments. Existing options can have limited adherence and can be very time-consuming. As such, alternative interventions are needed. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has been FDA-cleared for depression since 2008 and has recently been cleared to treat smoking cessation and obsessive-compulsive disorder. It has demonstrated promise for reducing PTSD symptom severity but standard TMS has a significant time requirement. This study will compare an accelerated 5-day form of TMS versus sham for PTSD, characterizing efficacy and durability. This project will provide important information that can be implemented in the near term for Veterans with PTSD.
Description
The primary research question of the proposed study is: Can transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) effectively treat posttraumatic stress disorder in Veterans using a pragmatic accelerated approach? The investigators address the need to improve symptom severity in this population utilizing the RAPID5 TMS protocol which delivers five treatments per day over the course of five days. The proposed four-year randomized controlled trial will compare the RAPID5 protocol to a Sham TMS Control Condition. The primary aim of the proposed research is to evaluate the efficacy of TMS to ameliorate PTSD sym…
Eligibility
- Age range
- 18–70 years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- No
Inclusion Criteria: * Diagnosis of chronic PTSD, meeting DSM-5 criteria. * Eligible Veterans (regardless of sex) will be between the ages of 18-70. * Symptomatic despite ongoing stable treatment (medications, psychotherapy, etc.) for at least 6 weeks before study procedures. * Ongoing medications and psychotherapy will be allowed to continue unchanged during the study. * For safety, participants must meet established screening criteria for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). This is implemented as a conservative measure given the novel application of TBS in this population since MRI involves ma…
Interventions
- DeviceTranscranial magnetic stimulation
iTBS; 50 Hz triplets given at 5 Hz frequency with a cycle time of 2 seconds on and 8 seconds off). There will be 60 cycles for a total of 1800 pulses
- DeviceSham transcranial magnetic stimulation
Sham iTBS; 50 Hz triplets given at 5 Hz frequency with a cycle time of 2 seconds on and 8 seconds off). There will be 60 cycles for a total of 1800 pulses
Locations (2)
- VA Palo Alto Health Care System, Palo Alto, CAPalo Alto, California
- Providence VA Medical Center, Providence, RIProvidence, Rhode Island