Ybrain, a company specializing in mental health diagnostics and therapeutics, said on Wednesday prescriptions for MINDD STIM, a prescription depression electroceutical for at-home use, exceeded 6,000.
MINDD STIMM is a wireless headband wearable device that delivers non-invasive brain stimulation through transcranial direct current stimulation, tDCS, to treat depression through normalization of the frontal lobe. Through this telemedicine platform, results are derived for the entire process from mobile using scale examination to hospital/home treatment and patients can directly record and manage their symptoms.
This electroceutical prescription which prevents drug misuse/abuse and allows treatment at home was approved by the Ministry of Food Drug and Safety (MFDS) in April 2021.
It is the world’s first 100 percent home-based clinical trial with verified effectiveness in improving depressions symptoms over other anti-depressant drugs, Ybrain said.
In June, MINDD STIM was selected by the Ministry of Health and Welfare for its innovative medical technology.
The device is not covered by health insurance but 46 local hospitals have prescribed MINDD STIM in 6,000 cases so far.
Accordingly, September had the highest monthly utilization rate with 1,759 cases, and steadily increased after the non-reimbursement announcement.
"MINDD STIM is confidently reaching patients at mental health clinics nationwide with a remission rate of depression is 62.8 percent in licensed clinical trials," Ybrain CEO Lee Ki-won said. "Simultaneously, we plan to continue to expand the blue band campaign launched in collaboration with the Korean Neuropsychiatric Association to create an atmosphere for more active treatment of depression."
CEO of the Modu Psychiatric Clinic in Bundang, Dr. Park Min-soo, who has been prescribing this device since June, said, "Women in their 50s who are hesitant to start drug treatment hoped for a different treatment platform like this which MINDD STIM provides.”
Park added, “Currently, patients are generally satisfied with MINDD STIM because there is no restriction on activities and no discomfort during treatment, and the effect of treating depression is also high as the number of treatments accumulates, so it is of interest to all age groups.”
Meanwhile, research is also ongoing to expand indications of MINDD STIM. For example, a recent research paper published in the international journal, Stroke, investigated using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to enhance cognition in stroke patients using Ybrain’s MINDD STIM. Consequently, the results showed that remotely supervised tDCS were a safe and feasible rehabilitation modality for poststroke cognitive dysfunction.