How Total Veteran Healthcare Provides Pioneering Mental Health Services
Total Veteran Healthcare engages with some of Australia’s leading specialists in Veteran Health to offer cutting-edge, clinically proven mental health therapies to Veterans Australia-wide.
Mental Health is a complex and growing branch of medicine, with recent medical advancements providing patients experiencing complex, long-term and treatment resistant mental health conditions with further options beyond traditional therapies.
Comprehensive Mental Health Care
Total Veteran Healthcare offers Veterans comprehensive, coordinated mental healthcare, with clearly defined clinical escalations for Veterans experiencing complex chronic disease, including treatment-resistant and long-term mental health conditions. Accessed through a Total Veteran Healthcare GP and coordinated within multidisciplinary clinical care teams, Innovative Treatments are a vital aspect of escalation healthcare, particularly for Veterans with mental health conditions that may not be responding to traditional pharmacology, like anti-depressants.
Total Veteran Healthcare + Monarch Mental Health Group
Doctor Ted Cassidy is Total Veteran Healthcare’s Head of Psychiatry, a practising Psychiatrist, Cofounder of Monarch Mental Health Group, and a pioneer in innovative mental health care therapy in Australia. Dr Ted Cassidy has led the charge in the administering of new, clinically evidenced treatments that provide patients with options beyond traditional talk and pharmacological therapies, and has overseen the treatment of over 10,000 mental health patients.
One of the first clinicians to administer and prescribe psychedelic treatment in Australia, Dr Ted Cassidy is passionate about providing the 20% of Veterans suffering with chronic mental health conditions with advanced treatment options, should they find no symptomatic relief from first-response therapies.
Dr Cassidy co-founded Monarch Mental Health in 2014 to assist patients in gaining fast and convenient access to mental health programs and clinicians throughout Australia. Monarch Mental Health opened Australia’s first outpatient clinic to offer assisted therapies, and is currently Australia’s largest provider of outpatient Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation therapy, with locations in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and the ACT.
“I have been treating Veterans since my earliest days as a medical student where my first experiences of patient care was in a Repatriation General Hospital – I have treated veterans of conflicts from WWI all the way through to the War on Terror. In doing this, I have seen the wide-ranging effects service has on the mental health of veterans.
Our mission is to provide treatments that lead to full recovery from symptoms of Depression, PTSD and Anxiety. For a long time that seemed aspirational, however in recent years we have access to a range of evidence based next step treatments that make this possible.”
– Dr Ted Cassidy
Delivering Advanced Mental Health Care
Total Veteran Healthcare and Monarch Mental Health Group work together to provide coordinated mental health for Australian Veterans that go beyond first response treatments, recognising that many Veterans experience treatment-resistant mental health conditions Innovative Treatments are designed to address.
While every Veteran has different needs that require uniquely clinically-appropriate care plans, Total Veteran Healthcare is able to provide a suite of escalation healthcare options for our mental health care patients that can include innovative treatments, such as Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, Medication Assisted Psychotherapy, and Nasal Spray Delivery Therapy. These treatments can be administered from our Brisbane clinic, or via our partner clinics across Australia.
Evidence-Backed Innovation
While many innovative treatments may be considered modern medical advancements or ‘cutting-edge’, this does not mean they are experimental. Many Innovative Treatments have undergone decades of study and clinical trials, and have been recognised as approved therapies in multiple countries, including Australia.
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation has been studied rigorously for the last 20 years in clinical trials involving thousands of patients. TMS is an approved therapy for the treatment of depression in Australia, the United States, Canada, Israel and the United Kingdom.
The antidepressant effects of the active mechanism in Nasal Spray Delivery Therapy have been recognised for more than 20 years, while it has been used in medicine (as a general anaesthetic) for over 50. The use of Nasal Spray Delivery Therapy for the treatment of treatment-resistant depression has successfully transitioned to clinical practice in Australia and New Zealand, with Australian-led research highlighting it’s efficacy.
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) is an evidence-based, non-invasive and painless therapy that can be used as an alternative to traditional pharmacotherapy, such as anti-depressants and anti-psychotics, or as a complementary therapy. TMS sends gentle, targeted impulses to specific areas of the brain to improve communication between the regions involved in mood control. Learn more about TMS therapy here.
Nasal Spray Delivery Therapy
Nasal Spray Delivery Therapy uses a unique delivery system to treat long term mental health conditions such as depression. Providing a further escalation treatment option for patients experiencing treatment-resistant depression, Nasal Spray Delivery Therapy is a clinically-proven treatment shown to reduce the symptoms of depression, including, in some cases, suicidal ideation.
Coordinated Mental Health Care
Total Veteran Healthcare provides coordinated mental health care plans that include escalation pathways for Veterans experiencing treatment resistant mental health conditions. By engaging with pioneering providers including Monarch Mental Health Group, Total Veteran Healthcare can provide bespoke treatment plans that are designed to support Veterans throughout their healthcare journey, with further support and treatment options for those experiencing complex, chronic mental health conditions.
Learn more about Innovative Treatments and our mental health support programs here.
