As man learns more about medicine it becomes clearer that sometimes the treatments that we look at with a lack of understanding and so think they are too unusual are becoming some of the more successful medical treatments that we have to offer.

Man is learning that drugs are not always the only answer and that in many cases it is not the answer for all of their patients. Especially since many people seem to be resistant to certain medications even if physicians do not as of yet fully understand why.

When this is the case other methods of treatment must be tried. This is often the case with depression where thirty percent of sufferers seem to be resistant to standard treatments.

The newest treatment to fall into this category is magnetic therapy and the leading method of this is transcranial magnetic stimulation.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation, also called TMS, is being used to treat depression with some fairly positive results. In this treatment the health care provider uses a device that is run over the head of the patient sending an electrical current into certain areas of the brain.

It is able to transmit through the skin and bone of the skull right into the brain's nerve cells because of the type of magnetic pulses that are used. If the pulses were merely electrical they would be unable to pass through these surfaces.

This has been heralded as a great new treatment because researchers are saying that it can target specific areas in the brain where it is believed the centers for depression sit. If this is the case and the electromagnet treatment can correctly stimulate these centers then it opens up many treatment possibilities.

After a treatment period of two weeks, where daily treatments are being given, an average patient is showing a thirty percent reduction in their symptoms. For someone who suffers from severe depression this can be an incredible relief.

Although a relatively new treatment, and so still classified as experimental, there are many hospitals and outpatient clinics that are offering this treatment option to those who find nothing else works for them. Researchers today feel that in a decade this treatment has the possibility of being just as common as the use of antidepressants.

Magnetic therapy has actually been around since the times of the Tibetan monks. There are many stories of their use of this early magnetic therapy. They used a magnet hung over the head to help with depression.

Interestingly studies on the use of a magnetic to help diminish depression met with unexpected results. Researchers believing they would easily prove this theory wrong decided to conduct small trial studies.

It was found that men felt a lessening of their depression when north pointed up but for women it was the opposite. Many of those who feel strongly about the advantages of magnetic therapy assert that it can treat more than just the symptoms of depression that it treats the causes as well.