# Anyone of you who had a SPECT scan?



## thundercats (Mar 12, 2012)

There's a doctor Amen who uses those scans to diagnose his patients. I wonder how helpful those expensive scans really are. Is this just a rip off? I also heard that a spect scan of the same person may look totally different each time you do it and that it basically doesn't prove anything but according to this doctor those scans are helpful in finding out what's wrong with people and finding the right medication. For example he writes in his book about people who had certain issues and then he runs the scan and either find totally underactive parts of the brain or totally overactive parts of the brain and then he puts them on antidepressants, stimulants or anti-seizure drugs depending on what the scans revealed.


----------



## Squirrelevant (Jul 27, 2008)

It doesn't look promising to me. Some preliminary findings and anecdotal evidence don't justify an expensive scan that gives a large dose of radiation.

Here's an informative article I found:
http://www.quackwatch.org/06ResearchProjects/amen.html

And here's Amen's response to it, with comments by the author of the original article:
http://www.quackwatch.org/06ResearchProjects/amen_response.html

His response seems rather weak to me, which I find more telling than the article itself. As the author says, I wouldn't get this scan done if it was offered for free.


----------



## thundercats (Mar 12, 2012)

This means either Amen is right and he really helps a lot of people or he's be lying and making up numbers. :|


----------



## Squirrelevant (Jul 27, 2008)

It's quite possible that he has convinced himself that he is helping others as a result of both his and his patients' cognitive biases. That's why patient testimonials are essentially useless for determining the efficacy of a treatment.


----------



## thundercats (Mar 12, 2012)

I don't know. He often wrote stuff like that if a patient did concentration exercises during the scan that parts of the brain totally "shut down" and these patients usually were those with ADD. If this stuff is true then it would be helpful to diagnose ADD or other abnormalities. But I don't know how helpful these scans are and if this "shutting down" couldn't also occur in people who are normal.


----------



## f1point8 (May 21, 2012)

I've had it done, but it wasn't connected with Amen's clinic. A nearby neuroscience center was recommended to me after not having much success with therapy. I was supposed to get the SPECT scan and an EEG, but ended up only doing the first. I did research and found pretty much the same links plus one or two more, all basically saying that there hasn't been enough research. I haven't seen any new articles but I have heard about more people going to the clinic and doing well after getting the scan, and all being prescribed an anti-epileptic drug. I remain skeptical, though, about the scan being all that useful for those with anxiety disorders. I'm not sure if I will back there.

I wasn't diagnosed with anything after getting the results from the scan but the conclusions on my report were: areas of hyperfusion compatible with anxiety/OCD; a possibility of limbic type seizures; possible depression of the bipolar 2 type; and learning, impulse control and social interaction difficulties. I'd be interested to see if another doctor would come to those same conclusions if he was sent nothing but the images.

I think the main conclusion that I walked away with was that I threw away a lot of money. I still think about going back just to see what the doctors would say after also having EEG results, but I'm not sure if it is worth it.


----------

