Electroconvulsive therapy can cause memory loss and other kinds of cognitive dysfunction.
Electroconvulsive therapy (ETC), previously known as "electroshock treatment" or "electric shock therapy," involves sending electrical impulses into the brain to alter brain function. In the 1940s, doctors started using it systematically to treat mental illness, criminal behavior and memory loss but with mixed results. Today, electroconvulsive therapy is mainly used to treat depression and bipolar disorder, and the use of muscle relaxers and anesthetics during the procedure has made it less painful. However, the treatment can cause brain injury, which has lead many to regard it as inhumane.
History
In 1937, Italian neurologist Ugo Cerletti, who had successfully used metrazol-induced convulsions to treat schizophrenia, started looking for a safer alternative. As a specialist in epilepsy, Carletti had studied electroshock-induced seizures in dogs. He convinced two of his colleagues to help him develop an apparatus that could be used to deliver similar electric shocks to human beings. Once perfected, the method turned out to be more effective than metrazol and was launched worldwide.
Why Is Shock Therapy Performed?
According to William McDonald, a professor of psychiatry, shock therapy is one of the most effective treatments for people with depression. Because shock therapy can be quicker than medications, it may be beneficial for people in need of acute treatment or who cannot take or are not responding to antidepressants. The symptoms of depression, he reports, can improve in a period of a week as opposed to the six to eight weeks it can take with medication.
How Does Shock Therapy Work?
With ECT, an electric charge is delivered to the brain and causes a seizure. The seizure generates random activity in the brain. While no one know exactly why seizures can improve the symptoms of depression, psychiatrists believe that seizures can increase the availability of the neurotransmitters dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin in the brain. People with major depression have insufficient amounts of these neurotransmitters.
Brain Injury as a Result of Shock Therapy?
In a recent study involving 347 patients, Harold Sackeim, a previous defender of shock therapy, found that electroconvulsive therapy causes "adverse cognitive effects". Proponents of electroconvulsive therapy hold that while the procedure produces short-term memory loss and in some cases long-term memory loss and an inability to think abstract thoughts, it does not lead to brain damage. This claim, however, is misleading. Impairment of thought and memory functions is a kind of temporary, or in some cases permanent, brain damage.
Opponents of Electric Shock Therapy
Opponents of electroshock therapy argue that the negative side-effects of electroshock outweigh its benefits and that the shock industry has concealed its true consequences. According to shock-survivor activist Linda Andre, electroshock therapy has failed to meet normal standards of approval. The shock industry and organized psychiatry, she argues, have relied on public relations campaigns rather than medical trials to improve the procedure's reputation.
Tags: memory loss, brain damage, Electroconvulsive therapy, electroconvulsive therapy, electroshock therapy, shock industry