The push for a ban on Electroshock therapy.

31 posts / 0 new

Mon, 2011-05-09 09:53

Tommy_Paine

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/johnbon/2011/05/survivors-and-supporters...

I've known two people who have undergone this proceedure. Both asked my advice before having it. Both looked upon it as a last ditch effort to treat their dissorder. When people are desperate, what can you say?

What I've always tried to do is get them to ask the doctor for the actual data on efficacy. This proceedure, in various forms, has been in use upwards of 80 years. Yet, I have never been able to find data relating to efficacy anywhere, and the two people who asked my advice were never given a straight answer on what is a perfectly normal, perfectly reasonalbe question that should have a numerical answer.

It leaves me more than a little suspicious that this "therapy" is in fact quackery.

Mon, 2011-05-09 10:09

NDPP

A family member was repeatedly subjected to it over the years with devastating effects. It was first discovered in an abbatoir, that pigs shocked by an electrified floor, became passive and easier to handle. I think it is a barbaric nonsense that should have been abolished long ago.

Mon, 2011-05-09 10:26

Tommy_Paine

You know I've searched the net, and one can find lots of annectdotal accounts where it has been hurtfull-- and one can find testimonials where patients said it saved their lives. It's really not helpfull, and really not scientific at all.

I have my suspicions, on many counts, that make me want to dismiss this as quackery. But speculation and a "gut feeling" isn't science either.

It's time for the doctors who promote this proceedure to come clean with the data. What is scientific is to assert that the onus of proof is with the person making the claim. Therefore, they should be very forthcoming with the data that backs their position that this is an efficatious treatment.

Pretty basic.

Maybe funding should be suspended until this data is made easily available to patients and the public, at the least.

Mon, 2011-05-09 13:03

N.R.KISSED

In terms of the science behind ECT like most of psychiatry the claims made are not supported by evidence. To the psychiatric community the repeated claim that ECT is safe and effective is really all we need.The research that has been done is often dependent on clinical judgement rather than actual data.

Surprisingly (yes even shocking) the manufactures of ECT machines have never had to demonstrate that they were safe and effective. Just this winter an FDA panel recommended that the procedure remain classified as high risk and that research be done to determine if the procedure is indeed safe and effective. This is a tragedy to proponents of shock that claim the manufactures of the machines do not have the resources to fund such research despite the fact that the shock industry is a multi billion dollar one. The proponents of shock certainly have millions of dollars to promote and advocate the proceducre as safe and effective.

http://www.mindfreedom.org/kb/mental-health-abuse/electroshock/fda-shock...

"Mechanisms and standards exist to safeguard the health and welfare of the patient, but for electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) used to treat depression and other mental illnesses approval methods have failed. Prescribed to thousands over the years, public relations as opposed to medical trials have paved the way for this popular yet dangerous and controversial treatment option.
Doctors of Deception is a revealing history of ECT (or shock therapy) in the United States, told here for the first time. Through the examination of court records, medical data, FDA reports, industry claims, her own experience as a patient of shock therapy, and the stories of others, Andre exposes tactics used by the industry to promote ECT as a responsible treatment when all the scientific evidence suggested otherwise.
As early as the 1940s, scientific literature began reporting incidences of human and animal brain damage resulting from ECT. Despite practitioner modifications, deleterious effects on memory and cognition persisted. Rather than discontinue use of ECT, the $5-billion-per-year shock industry crafted a public relations campaign to improve ECT s image. During the 1970s and 1980s, psychiatry's PR efforts misled the government, the public, and the media into believing that ECT had made a comeback and was safe.
Andre carefully intertwines stories of ECT survivors and activists with legal, ethical, and scientific arguments to address issues of patient rights and psychiatric treatment. Echoing current debates about the use of psychopharmaceutical interventions shown to have debilitating side effects, she candidly presents ECT as a problematic therapy demanding greater scrutiny, tighter control, and full disclosure about its long-term cognitive effects."

http://www.amazon.com/Doctors-Deception-About-Shock-Treatment/dp/0813544416

Also surprisingly Dr. David Healy who has written extensively and critically on the use of psychiatric drugs wrote a book in favour of ECT with U of T biopsychiatric shill Edwin Shorter. Interestingly the book was funded by Dr. Max Fink (known as Dr. Shock) a major proponent of shock who also has shares in the ECT machine company. It has been suggested that Fink ghost wrote much of the book but his name was taken off because it would make its integrity questionable. Dr Fink was also a mentor for Dr. Healy

here is a critical review

http://www.ect.org/book-review-shock-therapy-by-david-healy-edward-short...

"Yet they are aware that all the available data to date on memory loss was systematically reviewed in a study commissioned by the British government and published in the British Medical Journal in 2003, because they cite to that study elsewhere for some other point, without revealing the main purpose or findings of the study: that at least one-third of ECT patients suffer permanent amnesia and that ECT commonly erases five or more years of their lives.

They cite a 1985 National Institute of Mental Health Report on ECT for its recommendation that questions about shock be included on psychiatry licensing exams. But what they don’t say is that in this same report NIMH found, based on work done by memory expert Larry Squire, that ECT causes an average eight-month period of permanent amnesia. Squire showed that the majority of ECT patients had impaired memories when they were studied three years after treatment—meaning Healy et al have neatly inverted the scientific evidence."

One last interesting gem is that recently an article was published by a Dr. Sackheim a doctor that has always been a proponent of shock the study actually showed that yes indeed ECT caused cognitive impairmens in people who had undergone the procedure

http://capacanada.wordpress.com/2007/07/07/summary-of-sackheim-article-b...

Mon, 2011-05-09 16:46

MegB

A friend of mine who was pressured for weeks to undergo ECT is in fact more ill after the process than before. According to her doctors, her heart would stop when they used levels high enough to produce the seizures necessary for maximum benefit. Um, WTF?

I'm appalled that this "treatment" continues to be promoted as effective, when all evidence is to the contrary. But then, when piles of money and professional reputations are involved, it's really no surprise.

Mon, 2011-05-09 23:18

Sineed

Tommy_Paine wrote:

This proceedure, in various forms, has been in use upwards of 80 years. Yet, I have never been able to find data relating to efficacy anywhere...

There have been numerous studies on the effectiveness of ECT, which is why it's still used. Physicians don't answer questions properly sometimes because giving a complete and thoughtful answer takes time and research.

Here's an abstract of a systematic review, which pools together data from numerous studies:

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(03)12705-5/fulltext

Quote:
ECT is an effective short-term treatment for depression, and is probably more effective than drug therapy. Bilateral ECT is moderately more effective than unilateral ECT, and high dose ECT is more effective than low dose.

In my experience, ECT has been reserved for only those most extremely refractory cases of depression. I admit my knowledge is much more on the drug side of things. That said, I would hesitate to ban something that has been found to have benefits for some people, according to randomized controlled clinical trials.

Here's what one of my textbooks says:

Quote:
ECT is a safe, rapid-acting, and highly effective therapeutic intervention that continues to suffer, ostensibly, from a poor public image. ECT was enormously popular during the 1940s and 1950s and was used without discretion to treat a wide variety of psychiatric conditions. This practice waned with the advent of effective psychotropic medications, and with the accumulation of case reports describing fractures and severe cognitive impairment in treated patients. Since the 1950s, the ECT procedure has undergone considerable transformation and refinement.59 Adjunctive medications are now routinely administered to prevent adverse effects and reduce morbidity (e.g., a short-acting barbiturate for general anesthesia, an anticholinergic agent to prevent bradycardia and dry excessive airway secretions, succinylcholine to prevent fractures from tonic-clonic contractions). The electric stimulus itself is no longer applied in one steady current but now consists of a series of brief pulses that have been shown to decrease the severity of postictal headaches and memory impairment.

Mon, 2011-05-09 23:58

N.R.KISSED

Not surprisingly your link states article not found. Claims made in textbooks is not the same as reserrch. Also giving an anesthetic and muscle relaxant does nothing to prevent brain damage. IF it is so safe and effective it is unlikely an FDA panel would have said that it was high risk, Considering all the contorversy it is deeply surprising and disturbing that these machines have never had to undergo FDA approval.

Mon, 2011-05-09 23:59

N.R.KISSED

N.R.KISSED wrote:

double posts.

Tue, 2011-05-10 08:19

Sineed

N.R.KISSED wrote:

Not surprisingly your link states article not found.

It isn't surprising, given how much babble hates Macs; I'll try this again: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(03)12705-5/fulltext.

Looks like it doesn't want to work; I tried to type the html tags and it still didn't work. If you cut and paste the entire URL, including the part that doesn't get highlighted in red, you'll see the abstract.

Anyhow, ECT isn't used much, and it's only used in the most intractable cases of depression. Some doctors feel it's actually under-utilized on account of the stigma associated with it. And it may actually help some people.

IMV, A more worthy target of activism is the inadequate housing for very vulnerable psychiatrically fragile people who wind up going to jail because they don't get looked after in the community properly. And there's the people with psychiatric problems and addictions: again, they are more likely to end up in jail, both from the drug use and from the greater likelihood to become violent when they use drugs. And in Toronto we have lots of folks who can't find psychiatric care in a language they can understand (again, they sometimes end up incarcerated. These are the loneliest people I've ever seen.)

Given the numerous massive problems affecting so many, we should really be questioning why all this activist energy is focusing on a scarcely-used treatment with occasional utility and a sketchy past.

Tue, 2011-05-10 11:00

#10

Tigana

Why hasn't ECT been banned? Ask about the payment schedule.

The lonely people you see, Sineed, may be victims of medicine - psychiatric drugs, often fluoride-based meds.

Rethinking Psychiatric Care: If We Follow the Scientific Evidence, What Must We do To Better Promote Long-Term Recovery?
http://stream.buffalo.edu/shared/sw/research/whitaker.html

Robert Whitaker's Anatomy of an Epidemic investigates a medical mystery: Why has the number of adults and children disabled by mental illness skyrocketed over the past fifty years? There are now more than four million people in the United States who receive a government disability check because of a mental illness, and the number continues to soar. Every day, 850 adults and 250 children with a mental illness are added to the government disability rolls. What is going on?
http://www.robertwhitaker.org/robertwhitaker.org/Anatomy%20of%20an%20Epidemic.html

Tue, 2011-05-10 11:41

#11

N.R.KISSED

The use of ECT is not rare, it is used much more frequently than acknowledged. How frequenlty is difficult to say because hospitals do not keep records of how often the procedure is used. In the U.S. approximately 100,000 people undergo the procedure annually statistically rare maybe considering the whole population but still a significant number of those "treated" for a psychiatric disorder.

People protest against the use of Shock therapy because it destroys lives by causing permanent brain damage resulting in memory loss and other cognitive deficits.Those who oppose ECT also call for humane and effective treatment of those experiencing psychoemotional distress rather than the coercive, unscientific, damaging and ineffective "treatments" of psychiatry. Billliions of dollars are being spent that could be used for housing, employment income support, providing safe and healing environments for people in distress instead they get five minutes with a psychiatrist and a life time of disabling drugs.

"Harold Sackeim reverses position in upcoming study

by Linda Andre
Director, CTIP

The Cognitive Effects of Electroconvulsive Therapy in Community Settings

NIMH-funded research study published in the January 2007 issue of Neuropsychopharmacology

Author and primary investigator: Harold Sackeim

Funding: NIMH grants

#35636, Affective and Cognitive Consequences of ECT, funded since 1981 for a total of approximately ten million dollars so far (grant has been renewed through 2009)

#59069, ECT Practices in Community Settings—Evaluating Outcomes, funded since 1999 for a total of approximately 3.5 million dollars so far

Summary: After 25 years and millions of dollars of federal funding to research the adverse cognitive effects of ECT—25 years in which not one single longterm followup study was ever published—self-proclaimed “world expert” on ECT Harold Sackeim has now reversed his position, admitting that ECT routinely causes permanent memory loss and deficits in cognitive abilities. His new study—the first to be published in which he followed patients as long as six months, and one of his only studies to use controls—validates a generation of patient reports of permanent iatrogenic disability, and disproves Sackeim’s previously published claims that these reports were simply symptoms of mental illness. Other findings: there is no evidence that ECT increases intelligence, as Sackeim has previously claimed; and women are much more likely than men to experience severe permanent amnesia.

Significance: Harold Sackeim has been called the Pope of ECT, and for good reason. He’s published more on ECT than anyone in the world, has received more money to research it than anyone in the world, and is the author of the American Psychiatric Association’s patient information statement and consent forms, which are used by most hospitals in America. Through his writing, teaching, testimony—and positions on peer review, editorial, and funding boards, including NIMH grant review panels—he has more influence on what the profession and the public believe about ECT than anyone in the world. What Harold says goes.

Conclusion: This study could have been done at any point in the past 25 years. If it had, a generation of patients could have been warned of the likelihood of permanent significant memory and cognitive deficits before, instead of finding out after, ECT. In fact, there is evidence—from Harold’s own statements—that over the years he has in fact conducted studies following up ECT patients for a long as five years…but never published the results. Why not? Why did it take 25 years and over ten million dollars to validate what patients have been saying all along? In other words: What did Harold know, when did he know it, and why wasn’t it revealed?

Quotable quote from the study: This study provides the first evidence in a large, prospective sample that the adverse cognitive effects can persist for an extended period, and that they characterize routine treatment with ECT in community settings."

there is further analysis here

http://www.ect.org/harold-sackeim-reverses-position-in-upcoming-study/

Tue, 2011-05-10 11:51

#12

Tigana

Ect.org is a fine resource on this painful matter.

"How many people have ECT each year?

Complete data regarding ECT is difficult to ascertain. Only a handful of US states require reporting, and many other countries either do not collect data at all, or do so partially. Figures from the Department of Health in the United Kingdom show a decline in the last decade, from 105,000 ECT treatments (approximately 22,000 patients) in 1991 in England, to 66,000 treatments (11,340 patients) in 1999. No data was collected between those years. The decline appears to have continued into 2002 (the latest data as of this writing). (1)

Statistics in Canada are nearly nonexistent with the exception of Ontario, where activist Don Weitz meticulously hand counts records from the Province. The most commonly cited figure in the US is 100,000 patients receiving ECT annually. This number originates from a 1995 study that makes the estimate based on samples from psychiatric hospitals throughout the country, surveys by psychiatrists and other methods. Sometimes the figure quoted is 200,000, but these numbers are estimates only, not precise. (2)...

While there is no real way to know exact numbers of patients receiving ECT, certain trends exist in the UK and North America:

- the majority of patients are female
- many of those are over the age of 65. (1,3,4,5,6)

Critics of the ECT industry have pointed out that in North America, the use of ECT is rising because insurance and government health plans pay for ECT. In 2001, a staff psychiatrist at Vancouver's Riverview Hospital went public with his concerns that the use of ECT there had more than doubled after the Canadian health plan increased payments to doctors for ECT treatments. He contacted the Minister of Health after he said his job was threatened over his attempt to blow the whistle. He was fired from Riverview in December 2001. (7,8) "

From http://www.ect.org/cgi-bin/faq/smartfaq.cgi?answer=1014926757&id=1014926466

If I recall correctly, physicians who administration of ECT in Minnesota can receive $1000 per session... $100 per second? And if meds are co-administered, the fee is higher.

Looking for Ontario ECT payment schedule now...

Tue, 2011-05-10 11:59

#13

Tigana

http://www.health.gov.on.ca/english/providers/program/ohip/sob/physserv/...

PSYCHIATRY

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) cerebral - single or multiple

#G478 - in-patient.............................................................................. 71.65 6

#G479 - out-patient........................................................................... 81.85 6

Note:

Electrosleep therapy or Sedac therapy are not insured benefits.

RESPIRATORY DISEASE

G404 Chronic ventilatory care outside an Intensive Care Unit........... 61.00

Note:

Maximum 2 per week. Any other amount payable for consultations or assessments same

patient, same physician, same day will be reduced to nil.

Tue, 2011-05-10 12:08

#14

Tigana

Those harmed by this proceedure or others at hospitals in Ontario will be unlikely to get to the facts about the matter in the future.

http://www.lfpress.com/news/london/2011/05/05/18109316.html

Tue, 2011-05-10 12:17

#15

Tigana

Sineed writes,

"Given the numerous massive problems affecting so many, we should really be questioning why all this activist energy is focusing on a scarcely-used treatment with occasional utility and a sketchy past."

Physicians rarely screen for the physical disorders that in 80% or more of cases underlie "psychiatric illnesses", so perhaps we should be questioning what psychiatry is and what the value of treatments from this "discipline" with a cocaine-addicted founder and a sketchy past might be.

http://www.alternativementalhealth.com/articles/#M

Medical Causes

Finding the Medical Causes of "Dementia" in the Elderly: the Genesis Protocols Used by the Los Angeles County Genesis Program

Finding the Medical Causes of Severe Mental Symptoms:
The Extraordinary Walker Exam by Dan Stradford Founder, Safe Harbor

Medical Causes of Psychiatric Symptoms (Extensive)

Medical Causes of Psychosis, Anxiety, and Depression
by Ronald J. Diamond, M.D., Dept. of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin

The Medical Evaluation Field Manual of the State of California: Basic Screening Procedures for Finding Medical Causes of Severe Mental Symptoms

There are 29 physical causes of "schizophrenia" alone - so what is schizophrenia? Certainly it is a cash cow for certain industries.

http://www.alternativementalhealth.com/articles/causesofschizophrenia.htm

Tue, 2011-05-10 19:59

#16

Tommy_Paine

Thank you Sineed, for finding that extract. It's the most I've ever been able to find.

I remain unconvinced by the abstract, or at least I have issues with it. From what I've seen-- a whole two instances-- the diagnosis of "depression" seemed like a catch all. One of the critiques of the early use of this therapy, and a warning sign of any quack cure is a claim that that it cures or treats a cornicopia of ailments.

I think we have to entertain the thought that the diagnosis of "depression" could be a way to mask this tell tale sign of quackery. A person may come into a psychiatric ward because of a suicide attempt related to substance abuse. Or, they could be depressed because they keep inexplicably disassociating, and nothing seems to help. A lot of dissorders can be funnelled into the diagnosis of "depression". I mean, a person has found themselves on a certificate in a mental ward. Serious depression might even indicate proper mental health under those circumstances.

So while the study may say that it isn't being used to treat a broad spectrum of dissorders, I don't think that's the case in practice.

And as activism goes, I would expect that those protesting against Electroshock are also the same crowd who push for the important things you identified. It's not either or.

It sounds like I'm attacking your position, perhaps I am, but seriously, thank you. I always respect your thoughts on things like this, and it has clarified my thinking in some ways.

I tend to think after reading the abstract, that if a person is very seriously a danger to themselves that a short term improvement from that condition is something to not dismiss lightly.

But at the same time, Sineed, I know it's being used for much more than just this.

Tue, 2011-05-10 22:32

#17

N.R.KISSED

Ernest Hemingway after receiving ECT and just before his suicide

"Well, what is the sense of ruining my head and erasing my memory, which is my capital, and putting me out of business? It was a brilliant cure but we lost the patient...."

Tue, 2011-05-10 23:51

#18

RevolutionPlease RevolutionPlease's picture

Thanks for making this topic Tommy. And thanks for all the material from everyone else.

Wed, 2011-05-11 08:23

#19

Caissa

Is ECT used without informed consent?

Wed, 2011-05-11 11:54

#20

Uncle John

It depends on how deep you are into the psychiatric system. Once you are past a certain legal stage they can do whatever they want to you.

Wed, 2011-05-11 14:16

#21

N.R.KISSED

Caissa wrote:

Is ECT used without informed consent?

If the information that you are given is faulty how can one truly consent.

Wed, 2011-05-11 14:18

#22

Caissa

Well by definition that would negate the "informed" component.

Wed, 2011-05-11 16:36

#23

N.R.KISSED

Caissa wrote:

Well by definition that would negate the "informed" component.

Indeed but psychiatry didn't get the memo.

Sat, 2011-06-04 12:00

#24

LProudfoot LProudfoot's picture

Back when I was a Rights Advisor for the Ontario Advocacy Commission - you know, back before Harris, when people in Ontario were still allowed to not only HAVE rights but to know about them and have help to access them - I ran into altogether too many (in my non-medical opinion) people who were being ~encouraged~ to consent to ECT .... ~encouraged~ for example, by being told that unless they consented, their children would be removed from a friend's care and "dumped into foster care and you'll probably have a hard time getting them back...maybe you'll never see them again".

In another case, an elderly man who was refusing to eat was given ECT in the <2 hours it took me to get to the hospital re: his loss of the right to make his own health care decisions... apparently the emergency treatment for malnutrition is ECT (they've never heard of Ensure?). It was horrific to see how often it was used in community hospitals... and the aftermath.... absolutely horrific.

In the provincial facilities, in my experience, there are committees and ethic boards and one must show that it IS a last resort. In community based hospitals, there are no such limitations.

And re: consent - that's easy .... have run into it with people many times both as a rights advisor and since. If you agree with the doctor, you are capable; otherwise you're not.

My mother-in-law had Alzheimers - doctor wanted to take her off all of her medications, including diueretic that was keeping her heart functional. Her identified substitute decision maker said no - so they decided she was perfectly capable of making her own medical decisions (she was so obviously NOT) and did it anyway...without telling us. They damn near killed her. Intentionally.

Tue, 2011-06-07 07:47

#25

Refuge

Sineed wrote:

Given the numerous massive problems affecting so many, we should really be questioning why all this activist energy is focusing on a scarcely-used treatment with occasional utility and a sketchy past.

Um, my Dad underwent ECT in 2001, my thoughts to follow. I don't care if one person or a thousand people suffer that one person is suffering and that one person has family and friends who care about them. Are you saying my Dad isn't worth all this "activist energy"?

Caissa wrote:
Is Ect used without informed consent?

In the case of depression when it is used with the most severe od cases the person can be past the point of understanding what reality even is. My father was almost catatonic when he underwent ECT and "talking" with him at the time showed little ability to distinguish reality so any informed consent would have been impossible. He was just so desperate that he signed it partly because of the pressure of nothing else working and all the doctors saying it would partly because he just wanted to make everything go away and partly because he had no understanding of what was really going on.

My experience.

My father has had severe depression my whole life. He tried to kill himself in 1999 which led to a lack of sufficient oxygen for hours. He has suffered from an inability to sleep for just as long as the depression. When he underwent treatment he had suffered from near catatonic depression for 2 years from his house. He hardly ate and he was a severe alcoholic on top of taking medication after medication for depression. The reason I mention all of this is because I can easily see why they would use him for ECT. If he suffered any type of impairment from ECT it could be written off as likely from one of numerous causes from before the ECT. Was the imparement causes from the lack of oxygen, the medications, the alcohol, the catatonic depression, the poor diet.

I saw him just hours after one of his first visits. Normally he would sit in a chair and stare at the tv. He would respond to questions but you ask more than one or two he would start to tic and get very jumpy. He was sensive to light. You couldn't ask him about anything past like what he ate the day before or even hours before because he would get this look on his face like he was concentrating really hard and after 2 or 3 minutes he would tell you the answer.

After the first visit he was a ghost. He sat at the kitchen table with this blank look on his face. If I asked him what he ate that day he would start to scrunch up his face like trying to remember but would stop like even scrunching his face was to much effort and then promptly forget I had asked him a question. When listening to me talk as soon as I would start hisntics would start and he would stop paying attention to what I was saying. when I stopped he would stop and I could see he had no clue that I had just said something. He was there but so removed.

After each treatment he got worse. He went from catatonic where you could see him struggling to get to the surface like a drowning man, confused but there to someone who just floated in the water and didn't care about what was around him.

Did it cure or even make better any of his symptoms. No. How much of his deficits now are as a result of ECT. Impossible to tell. But that is the one reason they should never have done it on him, if a person is so bad off that you could blame any of his severe impairments on a number of things shooting electricity through his brain is not a brilliant idea.

I know it changed who he was and who he is today. I am also convinced that the ECT set him back in his recovery. It took him years to get back to a similar state to what he was in before the ECT and I say similar because he never got back some of the things he lost with concentration and personality that disappeared after ECT. He still isn't recovered at this point and likely never will. I have no idea what he would look like without ECT and have no delusions that he would be fine now but have huge speculation that he would be better than what he is now because he lost years recovering and lost some traits.

One thing I didn't mention is when talking with him immediately following the ECT treatment when he would forget I asked him a question or he would lose concentration there was about a second where he would get very tense and this look would come over his face - a mixture of terror, pleading, pain and shock and I often wonder if that was his body remembering the traumatic experience. that shook me most of all.

Tue, 2011-06-14 17:11

#26

Unclefred

You have to take a look at what ECT actually does. They shoot high voltage through your brain and burn out synapses fairly randomly. If you were feeling emotional pain, you feel it less, but you feel everything else less also. It is not a magic bullet. It is a blunt instrument and I expect you could get much the same results by hitting the patient over the head with a hammer. General brain damage is the result. Symptoms disappear in proportion to brain function. Fine motor skills like handwriting are destroyed. Memories are destroyed. Everything recorded is simply consistent with general brain damage.

Does anyone know if people with epilepsy ever get depression? (;-)) I suspect they do, but I don't know.

ECT should be banned completely! No question. It's a primitive practise and a very blunt tool.

Sun, 2011-06-19 09:00

#27

Tommy_Paine

Another annectdote: A friend undwent this therapy not long ago. This person's illness is currently worse. This isn't scientific. Maybe this person would be even worse now without it for all I or anyone knows.

Funny you should mention epilepsy, Unclefred. I have two daughters with epilepsy. Both currently with petite mal, but the elder one used to have grand mal siezures. The medical thinking is that you want to prevent them as much as possible as the activity that spawns the siezures can become patternized (?) in the brain. Fortunately, my elder daughter was checked not to long ago, and the Grand mal activity has dissapeared.

But that always got me thinking-- if doctors try to avoid Grand Mal siezures in epileptics, and regard them as something negative (not just in terms of dangers associated with, say falling down etc., but with brain damage) how can it be regarded as theraputic to induce grand mal siezures?

I never looked at it from the angle you suggest, whether the epileptic population enjoys less depression statistically than other populations.

Sun, 2011-06-19 10:15

#28

Sineed

Here is a link some of you may find interesting:

"Electroconvulsive Therapy: Guidelines for Health Authorities in British Columbia"

http://www.health.gov.bc.ca/library/publications/year/2002/MHA_ect_guide...

Quote:
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a safe and effective treatment for a variety of psychiatric and some medical conditions. It has proven superiority in prospective studies comparing ECT with “sham” ECT, and with standard antidepressant treatment in “medication-resistant” patients. Especially when patients are identified early in the course of hospitalization and offered ECT as a treatment option, there can be a reduction in the length of stay and hospitalization cost, owing to both efficacy and rapidity of response

Here's an article from the CBC a couple of years ago, describing how often ECT is used in Canada (as of 2008). If you scroll down to the comments, there are a few cautious testimonials from patients giving both the positive and the negative aspects of their experience with ECT.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2008/05/12/ele...

ECT is probably the most controversial treatment offered in medicine. But if it is to be banned, there has to be evidence showing that the risks outweigh the benefits. We don't want to be banning a potentially life-saving treatment because it makes people squeamish.

Thu, 2011-06-23 19:55

#29

N.R.KISSED

Sineed wrote:

Here is a link some of you may find interesting:

"Electroconvulsive Therapy: Guidelines for Health Authorities in British Columbia"

http://www.health.gov.bc.ca/library/publications/year/2002/MHA_ect_guide...

Quote:
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a safe and effective treatment for a variety of psychiatric and some medical conditions. It has proven superiority in prospective studies comparing ECT with “sham” ECT, and with standard antidepressant treatment in “medication-resistant” patients. Especially when patients are identified early in the course of hospitalization and offered ECT as a treatment option, there can be a reduction in the length of stay and hospitalization cost, owing to both efficacy and rapidity of response

Here's an article from the CBC a couple of years ago, describing how often ECT is used in Canada (as of 2008). If you scroll down to the comments, there are a few cautious testimonials from patients giving both the positive and the negative aspects of their experience with ECT.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2008/05/12/ele...

ECT is probably the most controversial treatment offered in medicine. But if it is to be banned, there has to be evidence showing that the risks outweigh the benefits. We don't want to be banning a potentially life-saving treatment because it makes people squeamish.

SQUEMISH????

"Destroying Lives

The study does not address the actual impact of these losses on the lives of individual patients. Like most such reports, it's all a matter of statistics. In human reality the loss of autobiographical memories indicates that patients could no longer recall important life experiences, such as their wedding, family celebrations, graduations, vacation trips, and births and deaths. In my experience, it also includes the wiping out of significant professional experiences. I have evaluated dozens of patients whose professional and family lives have been wrecked, including a nurse who lost her career but who recently won malpractice suit against the doctor who referred her for shock. Her story is told on my website, www.breggin.com.

Even when these injured people can continue to function on a superficial social basis, they nonetheless suffer devastation of their identities due to the obliteration of key aspects of their personal lives. The loss of the ability to retain and learn new material is not only humiliating and depressing but also disabling. The slowing of mental reaction time is frustrating and disabling. Even when relatively subtle, these disabilities can disrupt routine activities of living. Individuals can no longer safely drive a car for fear of losing their concentration or becoming hopelessly lost. Others can no longer find their way around their own kitchen or remember to turn off the burner on the stove. Still others cannot retain what they have just read in a newspaper or seen on television. They commonly meet old friends and new acquaintances without having any idea who they are. Ultimately, the experience of "global" cognitive dysfunction impairs the victim's identify and sense of self, as well as ruining the overall quality of life.

Although unmentioned in the Sackeim article, in addition to cognitive dysfunction, shock treatment causes severe affective or emotional disorders. Much like other victims of severe head injury, many post-shock patients become emotionally shallow and unable to relate on an intimate or spiritual level. They often become impulsive and irritable. Commonly they become chronically depressed. Having been injured by previously trusted doctors, they almost always become distrustful of all doctors and avoid even necessary medical care."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-breggin/disturbing-news-for-patie...

Theer is absolutely no evidence NONE WHAT SO EVER that ECT "saves lives"

Mon, 2011-07-04 17:26

#30

Unclefred

Tommy_Paine wrote:

if doctors try to avoid Grand Mal siezures in epileptics, and regard them as something negative (not just in terms of dangers associated with, say falling down etc., but with brain damage) how can it be regarded as theraputic to induce grand mal siezures?

Yes. You said it better than I. Unfortunately for medicine, money talks louder than science. The science could be good if the economy was neutral. Maybe some psychiatry prof can get a research paper out of this, but which master will that person serve?

I still say ban the process. It's Medievil and Frankensteinian, sick, twisted and damaging to people.

Thu, 2011-10-13 17:25

#31

CherylPrax

The UK government has recently introduced e-petitions online.

Please sign this 'Abolish ECT' e-petition and relegate this barbaric 'treatment' to the history books along with lobotomy. We need 100,000 signatures to get it debated in parliament.

To sign an e-petition, you must be either:

a citizen of the UK (can live abroad)
a resident in the UK (you normally live in the UK)

It only takes a minute! Please pass this on.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/16278

Thank you for your help.