The Use of Electroconvulsive Therapy

The Use of Electroconvulsive Therapy

By Rebecca Carlone and Christopher Sanchez

Electroconvulsive therapy, also known as electroshock therapy, was actually a quite popular form of mental illness treatment in the mid-late 1900s and is still used today in modified forms. When it originally came to be used, the hope of electroshock therapy is that it would cure depression and other forms of mental illness by inducing seizures. By having a seizure, psychologists believed it would jump-start and reset the brain to normal function and cure the person of the illness they were believed to have. It’s important to note that in the earlier forms of ECT, no anesthetics or muscle relaxers were used, thus the process could actually cause harm to the patient being treated. Some types of injuries of pre-anesthetic ECT treatments were dislocation or fractures of the bones because of the sheer force of the convulsions that it causes.

This in itself was somewhat controversial, however, the real controversy of ECT surrounded the idea that it was unregulated and being used improperly. It was rumored that psychiatric hospitals were using ECT to subdue patients and that the patients did not consent to have such therapy. They were shocked several times a day despite not knowing the repercussions of their actions. Eventually, this was deemed illegal and modifications had to be made regarding the use of ECT.

The modified version of ECT which included mandatory anesthetic and muscle relaxer inclusion was introduced in 1951.  The anesthetics and muscle relaxers are distributed as one of the first steps in the ECT process and aim to help patients suppress any unnecessary pain or seizures that may occur during treatment.  A patient should also be given a mouth guard in order to prevent any self-administered harm to the mouth that may occur as a reaction to ECT.  In 1978, the American Psychological Association (APA) introduced the first standard of having a consent form present during an ECT operation.  The informed consent form requests the permission to administer ECT on the patient.  All the procedures, side effects, and benefits are written on the informed consent form.  The patient must fully understand and agree to everything on the consent form in order to participate in an ECT operation. 

A video showcasing the modern day ECT procedure

ECT is mainly used today to benefit those with severe depression.  ECT causes the release of chemicals in the brain that work to cause depression.   Short term side effects of ECT may include headaches, memory loss, or small pain.  Long term side effects may include possible permanent memory loss, and many have reported an unwanted personality change.