When rapid lifting of the depression is deemed necessary to prevent suicide, electroconvulsive therapy may be a treatment of choice.
When a depressed patient is incapadtated, suiddal, or psychotically depressed or when antidepressants are contraindicated or ineffective, ECT commonly is the treatment of choice for depression. Usually, 6 to 12 treatments are needed, although in many cases improvement is evident after only a few treatments. Even so, ECT has been associated with later short term memory loss, arrhythmias, and seizure activity. Researchers hypothesize that ECT affects the same receptor sites as antidepressants.
There are some people who because of severe physical illness are unable to tolerate the side-effects of the medications used to treat mood disorders.
In studies of people treated with electroconvulsive therapy it has been found that 80% of such people report that they were helped by the treatments. About 75% say that ECT is no more frightening than going to the dentist.
How Electroconvulsive Therapy Works?
ECT works by sending an electrical charge to the brain that causes a brief and controlled seizure. Although it may sound frightening, patients receive it while under general anesthesia, and awaken with no memory of the procedure.
A series of ECTs usually consists of six to twelve treatments over several weeks. Many complain of memory loss following ECT.
Headaches, muscle soreness, nausea, and confusion are possible side effects immediately following an ECT procedure. Memory loss, typically transient, has also been reported in ECT patients. ECT causes severe memory problems for months or years in one out of every 200 patients treated.
Information on Electroconvulsive therapy, or ETC
Although the use of ECT is declining in the UK, it is still the treatment of choice in severe life-threatening depressive illness, particularly when psychotic symptoms are present. It is sometimes essential treatment when the patient is dangerously suicidal or refusing to eat and drink. The treatment involves the passage of an electric current across two electrodes applied to the anterior temporal areas of the scalp, in order to induce an epileptic fit. The fit is the essential part of the treatment. Before the treatment is given, the patient is given a general anaesthetic and receives a muscle relaxant to prevent injury during the fit. Treatments are normally given twice a week for 3-6 weeks.
Other important points on Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)
ECT is a controversial treatment, yet it is remarkably safe and free of serious side-effects. Postictal confusion and headache are not uncommon, but transient. Short-term retrograde amnesia and a temporary defect in new learning can occur during the weeks of treatment, but these are short-lived effects.
Generally speaking ECT is used as a 'last resort', especially on children and adolescents, and only after all other first-line therapies and treatments have failed to help.
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