Electroconvulsive Therapy

Patients are informed of the possible side effects and what may or may not happen to them during and after the therapy. Then they are put under a short acting anaesthetic and given a muscle relaxant so they dont strain themselves when they go into convulsions. They then have electrodes attached to their head. Then an electrical current, 1.5 times higher than the persons seizure threshold, is passed through their brain, which sends them into convulsions for round about 15 seconds. The current is generally a brief pulse that shocks the patient on and off.

ECT is very effective when used to treat depression. However it is debatable whether this is the placebo effect or the actual ECT process. With other mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, the patient has a near 50% chance of remission into the illness, which is obviously not very good. There are many after effects also, which make ECT even less valid. Many patients experience memory loss from between a week and a year before the procedure. The patients tend to get the memory back after 7 or so months however. The process also shows some affect on the cognitive abilities of many patients, resulting in people losing verbal memory lists such as geometric shapes and maths.

The procedure of ECT has gained a fairly bad reputation, partly due to its depiction in films and media, but also because of the studies that have shown all the adverse after affects. The actual manner of the procedure is off-putting, as you can see from the picture above, it looks far worse than it is.