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home / 世界杯决赛2022

ketamine therapy approved for use in non-hospital treatment centres in alberta

community facilities with in-house anesthesiologists and psychiatrists will be able to offer the treatment intravenously

by the growthop

oct 4 2022
read time 2 minute read
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the college of physicians and surgeons of alberta (cpsa) had updated its regulations to allow non-hospital treatment centres to administer ketamine therapy.

community facilities with in-house anesthesiologists and psychiatrists will be able to offer the treatment intravenously, reports ctv calgary .

ketamine is “clinically recognized for its anesthetic, analgesic and antidepressant effects,” notes information from a cpsa clinical toolkit handout .

ketamine and esketamine are type 1 monitored drugs under the tracked prescription program (tpp) alberta program, which monitors the use of prescription drugs prone to misuse in the province. registration with tpp alberta and the use of a tpp pad are required for prescribing these drugs, notes the cpsa.

in 2020, health canada approved spravato , an intranasal form of esketamine, for the treatment of major depressive disorder.

“in clinical trials, we saw spravato provide a sustained improvement in symptoms of major depressive disorder. this new therapy has the potential to change the treatment paradigm for patients and their physicians,” dr. roumen milev, a professor of psychiatry and psychology at queen’s university, noted at the time.
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health canada approved the treatment based on two phase 3 clinical trials, a short-term induction study and a long-term maintenance study.
a few months earlier, field trip opened its first medical clinic in downtown toronto, where patients are treated with ketamine and undergo psychedelic-enhanced psychotherapy.

dr. michael verbora, field trip’s medical director, told the growthop that ketamine is a safe, dissociative drug that works the same way that other psychedelics do, by taking consumers out of their “default mode network.”

“we have 99 per cent of the same thoughts every day,” verbora said.
“your brain, after age 10 or 11, gets stuck in this circuit, it forms a lot of biases and beliefs about the world. these psychedelics disrupt this pattern of thinking. you wake up the next day and you’re kind of looking at things from a different perspective and questioning a lot of your assumptions. that can be extremely therapeutic because a lot of our assumptions are self-sabotaging and harmful to our health,” he explained.

dr. craig pearce, president of anesthesia for the alberta medical association and medical director at a private psychedelic therapy clinic, told ctv that ketamine treatment is “a new frontier” and “a brand new way to treat patients.”

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ketamine is currently the only regulated psychedelic treatment in canada. in august, eight canadians, including seven patients and one healthcare practitioner, filed a canadian charter of rights and freedoms challenge against the government of canada and the minister of health regarding patient access to psilocybin and psilocybin therapy.

the charter challenge argues that the current methods of legally accessing psilocybin — obtaining a personal exemption from the health minister under subsection 56(1) of the controlled drugs and substances act, working with a doctor to obtain an authorization through canada’s special access program  or enrolling in a clinical trial — do not adequately serve the needs of patients.

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