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ECT at the European Congress of Psychiatry
The words “safe and effective” have become super-glued to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). But safety and effectiveness are relative concepts. Is ECT safe because you are extremely unlikely to die with the electrodes on your head? Or is it unsafe because … Continue reading
Posted in ECT in the media, ECT in the UK
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ECT and recovery of orientation
A team of researchers from the Netherlands, led by Sven Stuiver, technical physician at Rijnstate Hospital, Arnhem, have recently published an article in European Psychiatry with the title “Restoration of postictal cortical activity after electroconvulsive therapy relates to recovery of … Continue reading
Posted in ECT and memory loss, ECT worldwide, Miscellaneous
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ECT and a Freudian typo
The Electroconvulsive Therapy Service at Providence Alaska Medical Center has produced a brochure for their patients which contains a typically optimistic account of ECT: “Electrical stimulation and seizure promotes changes in thebrain that reduce symtpoms associated with certain psychiatric disorders … Continue reading
Posted in Miscellaneous
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ECT and the disappearing shock
Electric shock + seizure = electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) It is simple. You give someone an electric shock, they have a seizure, and the result is ECT. That much has not changed since the treatment was invented more than eighty years … Continue reading
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ECT and a victim of injustice
“After medication did not work, she received 14 treatments of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)” Such statements are commonplace in case histories. Often there will be a long list of the various drugs that “did not work” before ECT is used. And … Continue reading
Posted in ECT and memory loss, ECT in the media, ECT in the UK
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Colleen Loo explains how ECT works
In an article on the website of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, professor of psychiatry Colleen Loo explains how electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) works. She said on a micro level, the procedure caused individual brain cells to regrow and become “plump and … Continue reading
Posted in ECT in the media, ECT worldwide
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ECT: joules and millicoulombs
In my last post I wrote about how psychiatrists have switched from joules to millicoulombs to measure the strength of the electric shock in electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). A recently published article (M Marcille et al. Durable response to electroconvulsive therapy … Continue reading
Posted in ECT worldwide, Electrical parameters
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ECT and joules
Psychiatrists in Belgium recently (November 2023) published a case report about a woman who was given electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) while she had a deep brain stimulator in place for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease. The 79 year old woman was … Continue reading
ECT statistics 