Cindy Elkins is a champion of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)—and SAINT™ treatment specifically—as a treatment for major depression that should be widely available.
Her ardent desire and passion stem from her own experience as a parent watching her daughter spiral into major depression.
“Chase’s depression was pretty all-consuming and took her from us for a bit. It was a completely foreign place for all of us. We felt helpless. We felt frustrated. We couldn’t believe that this invisible illness had just hijacked Chase,” Cindy recalls. “The more I learned about depression, the more my partner and I had to realize that who we were speaking to was the depression, and every now and then, we would see Chase again. It was the hardest thing we’ve been through in our lives, bar none.”
It was a precarious time, Cindy recalls, because youth mental health was declining rapidly during the pandemic, and it was hard to access mental health professionals. According to the World Health Organization, the pandemic triggered a 25 percent increase in the prevalence of depression and anxiety worldwide.[1]
Cindy organized a team of healthcare professionals—dubbed “Team Chase,” to oversee her daughter’s care. “We’re sporty, team people. That’s how I, my partner, and our girls grew up—we realized the power of a team is so much greater than what an individual can do,” Cindy explains. She also wanted to assemble an “all-star” team to tackle Chase’s health issues. “I knew that if I could find the best, I could help us work together better. I sent weekly status updates to Team Chase. And her healthcare providers were super responsive. They liked working together and having that more frequent communication outside of the clinic because there were so many aspects to Chase’s journey.”
Cindy learned about SAINT through her research. She read the initial clinical trial and then shared it with her family, including Chase. Ultimately, Chase decided for herself to try the treatment. It was a decision her parents felt was Chase’s to make because it’s her brain, and she was the one who would be impacted directly by the treatment. “If she had declined it, I would’ve advocated pretty hard for it. But she’s very analytical, and I knew that if she could read the results from the double-blinded randomized controlled trial, it would speak for itself,” says Cindy.
Chase’s response to the SAINT treatment was quicker than her family expected and could have dreamed of. “We kept seeing parts of Chase come back to us a little bit at a time.” In a story featured on the Today Show, Chase’s twin sister Christel had remarked that after the treatment, she saw her sister again.[2]
