Royal gets $1M donation towards mental health scanner

The Royal Ottawa Health Care Centre are halfway towards their goal of purchasing a cutting-edge tool to help diagnose and treat mental illness.

Ottawa philanthropist Dan Greenberg and his wife Barbara Crook donated $1 million towards the purchase of a PET-MRI imaging machine.

Positron emission tomography (PET) machines are sensitive machines that quickly track chemical changes in the body, including the brain, while magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners provide clear pictures of where problems with brain function may be occurring.

Representatives at the hospital said the combined tool could transform how major depression is diagnosed and treated.

There are only five such machines currently in operation, but the hospital said Tuesday it was now halfway toward raising the $8 million dollars needed to bring the imaging machine to Ottawa.

Machine can track if drugs are working

Doctors will use the machine to monitor how brain function changes in those with depression and monitor if prescribed drugs are working.

Dr. George Northoff, a psychiatrist at the Royal who will direct the Imaging Centre, said that's an improvement over how things are done now.

"It's currently trial and error and the current drugs are unspecific and you don't know which patient will react to which drug," said Northoff.

For Rachel Scott Mignon, who was diagnosed seven years ago with a bi-polar disorder that required hospitalization, the technology holds promise.

"I'm constantly bumping up and down with mania and depression and they can't kind of get the meds right," said Mignon. "There's not a magic pill, it'snot like you can find a quick fix."

Crook said the donation was personal for her, as both she and her father battled depression.