Transcend has a program we call Team KAP. Team KAP is where 3 matched patients undergo IV Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy sessions together. This is one way Transcend patients can undergo maintenance treatments at a much more affordable price. To our knowledge, Transcend is the only practice in the world that offers a program exactly like this.
A team KAP session involves 2-3 clients undergoing KAP together. These can be groups of patients starting treatment together at the same time, or patients who switch over to teams KAP after being seen individually for maintenance treatments.
Sessions are generally 2.5 - 3 hours in length.
The team of 2-3 patients meets with the KAP therapist to discuss what the therapeutic focus of each patient's session will be. Each team member gets an opportunity to discuss what has been most distressing recently or in life in general and the KAP therapist helps to take this content and suggest a method for how to gain insight or address this concern during the infusion itself.
The patient team gets set up for the infusion together in a room designed to host 2-3 patients undergoing ketamine infusions simultaneously.
Once set up, all three patients' infusions are started at the same time. The team sessions are conducted by two nurses and an experienced KAP therapist.
Each patient wears eyeshades and a pair of headphones that plays music and blocks all sound, but also has a microphone wired in to allow for the KAP therapist to speak with each patient individually. Because the headphones are noise-cancelling, patients will not hear each other during therapist check-ins during the actual infusion.
The therapist will help each client return to the therapeutic goal as the infusion progresses, and check in periodically to ensure the patient's Ketamine infusion level is appropriate throughout. The nurses monitor the patient's vital signs and adjust the level of Ketamine as needed with help from the KAP therapists check-ins with the patients.
When all patients are done with the ketamine infusions, the team processes with the KAP therapist for the remainder of the session, debriefing the experiences and sharing about insights gleaned from the experiences they have just had.
It is common that the process of reflecting not only on the experience the patient has had but also hearing about the experiences other members had can be highly useful to each member of the team. Kind of like when someone in class raises their hand and asks a question and everyone in the class is glad someone asked the question.
Though some might not feel as though they would be open to doing a KAP team, we have found that often the most averse patients are the ones who benefit the most from the process. The obstacle is the way!
What are the benefits of KAP teams?
In team KAP, the post-infusion state of openness facilitated by ketamine can allow team members to gain a sense of identification and connectedness with others who are struggling with similar mental and physical concerns. This sense of connectedness is healing for many of our patients who often feel tremendously alienated from others due to conditions like PTSD and depression.
In KAP teams where members are all struggling with issues related to alcohol, the accountability of the team members is so powerful to help maintain one's if this is a patient's ultimate goal.
Team KAP is more affordable. This allows for the aspects of Ketamine treatment that are critical for safety and efficacy to be maintained (IV administration, RN oversight, level adjustment, vital signs monitoring, and therapy) without the higher cost of individual IV KAP. Simply put, Transcend is the only place that offers a service that can yield this degree of efficacy, while maintaining safety at this cost. This is because only Transcend has been doing IV KAP long enough to have providers capable of facilitating this type of treatment.
Am I right for Team KAP?
Team KAP can treat
· Problem Drinking
· Chronic Pain Conditions
· Major Depression
· Anxiety Disorders
· PTSD
In summary, Team KAP can be a cheaper yet highly effective way to maintain the progress that was made in individual KAP sessions.
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· Ketamine Infusion Therapy
· Group Therapy
· Integration
Your peace of mind is worth the time.
Ketamine Infusion Therapy/Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy is ideal for people suffering from treatment resistant depression, anxiety, suicidal ideations, OCD, PTSD and chronic pain conditions with no relief from other medications or therapeutic interventions.
Ketamine is a very short acting medication. Generally speaking, any side effect experienced from Ketamine will be short-term and will subside after the infusion has stopped. It can be normal to have slight increases in blood pressure and heart rate during an infusion. A small percentage of patients do experience some nausea during or right after the infusion. Nausea, elevated blood pressure and heart rate are easily managed through IV medications during the session should these arise. Most patients who do not eat for three hours prior to the session, and keep their eyes closed or use eyeshades during the session, will not experience any nausea.
In high doses and/or with very frequent administration Ketamine can be irritating to the bladder. For the purposes of facilitating KAP, doses of ketamine are low and most patients will only do one or two sessions per week. In this dosing and frequency there is an extremely low risk of developing bladder irritation caused by the administration of Ketamine. We have never had a patient develop bladder issues from this treatment at our clinic.
During your medical intake, we will determine if you need to alter your medication regimen prior to treatment. There are only a few medications that should be altered prior to initiating treatment. For instance, stimulant medications, benzodiazepines, and medications like Lamictal may need to be held or adjusted prior to treatment.
We request that you don't eat a meal within 3 hours of the start of your appointment time.
After receiving a ketamine infusion, it is normal to feel slightly tired or loopy for several hours. It would be unsafe to drive after a session so we do require that you arrange a family/friend to pick you up or utilize a taxi or other ride service.
It is best to provide time to fully process the therapeutic content that may have been worked through in the session. We encourage our clients to journal and integrate in the time following the session.
At Transcend, it is our goal to have this treatment be a highly transformative, short term intervention for you.
One of the reasons to undergo the KAP process with a therapist vs. receiving Ketamine infusion or injection-only is because most people are able to avoid needing maintenance treatment long-term with KAP. When symptom reduction has occurred through the chemical effects of ketamine only, there is often a need to re-administer ketamine every 20-30 days to keep symptoms at bay. With KAP, symptom reduction is more often secondary to therapeutic progress which does not dwindle in time, and therefore maintenance treatments are often not required.
The majority of our clients will reach sub-clinical levels of distress after an average of 6-10 sessions. Most of our clients will discharge from our care after these sessions and won't need any form of maintenance therapy. Some people do benefit from revisiting KAP intermittently throughout the year following the initial series as needed to continue therapeutic progress but this is not the most common treatment plan at Transcend.
For chronic pain treatment, it is more difficult to keep baseline pain levels down and flare-ups without maintenance infusions ongoing. The majority of patients with chronic pain will do sessions every 30-90 days to keep the baseline pain levels reduced.
You can expect to be at the clinic for approximately 2 hours. There are many factors that influence the length of the infusion but most patients will receive a 35-50 minute ketamine infusion. Your Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy trained therapist and a registered nurse will be by your side throughout your entire time during the infusion. Your therapist will be with you before to help set goals for the session, during for guidance and processing, and after for continued therapy, integration, and reflection.
Have another question? Don't hesitate to reach out to us.
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