The Wearable That Treats Depression at Home Without Medication — Flow Neuroscience's CMO Explains

One in four adults in England is living with anxiety or depression. That's not a statistic from a bad year — it's the finding of the most rigorous long-term mental health survey in the world, and the trajectory has been heading in one direction for three decades. We are, by any measure, in a mental health crisis. And the treatments we have been relying on — antidepressants, talking therapies with months-long waiting lists — are simply not reaching enough people, fast enough.

In this episode of The Health Review I sit down with Dr Kultar Garcha — Chief Medical Officer at Flow Neuroscience, and a GP with deep experience in mental health treatment. Flow has built something genuinely remarkable — a wearable medical device that treats depression at home, without medication, by delivering gentle electrical stimulation to the precise area of the brain that goes underactive in depression. It has now been used by over 60,000 people across Europe and the UK, is being prescribed across seven NHS trusts and over ten services, and recently became the first device of its kind to receive FDA clearance in the US — backed by the largest ever at-home tDCS randomised controlled trial, published in Nature Medicine.

We cover:

Why depression and anxiety rates have risen so sharply — and why young people are being hit hardest

What depression actually feels like from the inside — and why around half of people who have it are never diagnosed

What's happening in the brain during depression — the prediction engine, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and why it's the key target

How Flow works — transcranial direct current stimulation explained in plain terms, and what it actually feels like to use it

The Nature Medicine trial — 57.5% of patients in remission at 10 weeks, with responses beginning as early as three weeks

Why 67% of patients already on antidepressants achieved remission when they added Flow

The NHS results — including an 80% reduction in depression symptoms and up to 75% drop in suicidal ideation in crisis services

The side effect profile compared to SSRIs — and what Dr Kultar wasn't told about antidepressant side effects during his own medical training

Why some people feel trapped on antidepressants and can't get off them — and what alternatives now exist

This episode is for you if:

You or someone you love has struggled with depression or anxiety and hasn't found the right treatment. You've been on antidepressants and want to understand your options. Or you're simply curious about where mental health treatment is heading and why brain stimulation technology is one of the most exciting frontiers in medicine right now.

About Dr Kultar Garcha:

Dr Kultar Garcha is Chief Medical Officer at Flow Neuroscience and a practising GP with extensive experience in mental health treatment. He oversees all real-world evidence and safety data at Flow and is currently leading research into Flow's applications for women's mental health including perimenopause, postnatal depression and PMDD.

This episode is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Always consult your own clinician before making changes to your health or treatment.

Visit Flow Neuroscience: https://www.flowneuroscience.com/

Use the code THEHEALTHREVIEW for 15% off the Flow Device.

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