Electroconvulsive Therapy

Electroconvulsive therapy is the process of passing an electrical current through the brain causing unconsciousness and convulsions. In this procedure electrodes are placed on both temples, or just one temple in unilateral treatment, and electricity is passed between them. This proceeder is usually used for patients suffering from severe depression after all other treatments have failed. The treatment is very controversial because many believe that there are side effects from passing electricity through the brain. Five major areas are looked at to see if there are side effects: the brains of epileptics, animal brains, psychological test findings with history of many ECTs, spontaneous seizures, and human brain reports.

In study brains of epileptics it was concluded that ECT cause lasting effects, much in the same way that grand mal seizures did. When studying animal brain both reversible and irreversible damage was found to brain cells after multiple ECTs. The results from studying psychological test were inconclusive because of the experimenters inability to set up a controlled experiment. There were always too many variables that could not be accounted for. Patients who have received ECTs have been known to have post-ECT spontaneous seizures. Though some had them prior to the numerous had not who afterwards did. It is unsure if the seizures last forever because often the patient i s put on medication to prevent them. However the studies have concluded that in at least some cases after people received ECT they started to have seizures. In studying human autopsies it was found that some patients of ECT had irreversible damage done to their brain while others damage was reversible. The explanation for the different was that if the patient was in good health prior to the ECTs they had a much better chance of not receiving irreversible damage.

The conclusion from looking at all the different areas mentioned is that there are many factors that at least partially determine whether or not the patient of ECts will receive permanent damage from them or not.