Electroconvulsive Therapy or ECT

Written by Julie Taylor

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), also known as electroshock, is a well established, albeit controversial, psychiatric treatment in which seizures are electrically induced in anesthetized patients for therapeutic effect.

Today, ECT is most often used as a last resort - for example as a treatment for severe major depression which has not responded to other treatment.  ECT is also used in the treatment of mania (often in bipolar disorder), catatonia and schizophrenia. It was first introduced in the 1930s and gained widespread use as a form of treatment in the 1940s and 1950s. Click on the book or HERE to find out more about this excellent handbook on ECT.

I personally know someone who has had a couple of courses of ECT and it has helped where nothing else would, although he still takes a lot of drugs and still suffers more than most.  'Shock' is essential reading for anyone considering ECT treatment - click on the book on the right or HERE. In the early days of ECT - 1940s and 1950s -  ECT was supposedly quite brutal - I wonder if there’s a reader out there who has a story to tell about that?  If you do I would love to receive it CLICK HERE and publish it here for us all to learn from.  Of course I would keep your identity private if you preferred.

It’s no longer a case of being strapped down and suffering terrible pain - it’s quite civilized with an anaesthetic and calm, quiet surroundings.  However, the stigma of ECT as being a somehow shameful treatment has remained today -  a stigma I would love to be a thing of the past.  To cheer you up, click on the cartoon and you'll be taken magically to a website full of cartoons about mental health that I've found and that tries to remove the stigma...

Today, an estimated 1 million people worldwide receive ECT every year, usually in a course of 6-12 treatments administered 2 or 3 times a week. Electroconvulsive therapy can differ in its application in three ways: electrode placement, length of time that the stimulus is given, and the property of the stimulus. The variance of these three forms of application have significant differences in both adverse side effects and positive outcomes. In a study, ECT was shown clinically to be the most effective treatment for severe depression, and to result in improved quality of life in both the short and the long-term.

After treatment, drug therapy can be continued, and some patients receive continuation/maintenance ECT. The American Psychiatric Association and the British National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence have concluded that the procedure does not cause brain damage in adults.  Certain types of ECT have been shown to cause persistent memory loss, whereas confusion usually clears within hours of treatment. Informed consent is a standard of modern electroconvulsive therapy.  Involuntary treatment is uncommon in countries that follow contemporary standards and is typically only used when the use of ECT is believed to be potentially life saving.

Read another ReBuildingYou article about depression here: http://www.rebuildingyou.com/diagnoses/43-mental-disease/229-depression-is-there-a-way-out