Can Age Predict How Well A Person Responds To Ketamine Infusions?
Have you ever wondered whether your age has something to do with how well you respond to ketamine infusions? In this blog post, we’re going to answer this question by breaking down the scientific article “Age affects temporal response, but not durability, to serial ketamine infusions for treatment refractory depression”
Age and the effectiveness of ketamine infusions. Are they related?
What Happened in the Study?
This study aimed to identify whether a patient’s age affects their responsiveness to ketamine infusion treatments or not. A total of 49 veterans diagnosed with treatment-resistant depression (TRD) were chosen for this study and were given a series of six ketamine infusions. The ages of these patients varied from 24 to 77 years old.
Studies show that age does not have anything to do with how responsive a patient is to ketamine infusions.
Results of the Study
Throughout the six infusions, the younger patients were more responsive to the fourth infusion. However, during the remaining infusions, progress between all ages seemed to have levelled. This means that age was not a significant predictor of how effective the treatment will be. Although, it was found that the older patients did respond to the treatments later on during the course.
Regardless of your age, you do not need to worry whether you are too young or too old to receive ketamine infusions.
What Does This Study Mean for You?
If you are a bit older with depression and wondering if your age could affect the effectiveness of ketamine infusions, then this isn’t something you should worry about. Although it may take a while for your body to respond to these infusions, ultimately, age is not a huge factor when it comes to effectiveness of the treatment.
Do note, however, that regardless of these findings, everyone still responds to ketamine infusions differently. This is why it’s always important to measure your progress throughout the treatment, which you can learn more about here.
Also it’s important to point out that for some, with older age also comes chronic conditions that could be adversely affected by ketamine. Learn more about who shouldn’t get ketamine infusions here.
It’ll be interesting to see further studies on whether age affects ketamine’s effectiveness in treating depression.
Final Considerations
This study was actually done retrospectively from a series of patients who received clinical care at a VA ketamine clinic. Thus, the subjects were limited in terms of demographic and diagnostic diversity. It also lacked the rigor of a randomized, controlled study. It would be interesting to see a more randomized study to reconfirm the findings of this one.
There are plenty of factors that determine whether someone responds to ketamine infusions or not. Is age one of these factors? Read this blog post to find out based on a study conducted on this matter.