I am Away, but an emergency has come up.  My aunt is in her eighties and possibly suffering from a mixture of things, including depression.  Being rich and a widow, she is natural prey for all kinds of shysters.  Among them seem to be psychiatrists of a bent we all know too well, the electro-shock Judge Rotenberg School types.  I am deeply concerned.  My mother won't listen to me.  However, if I can bring her evidence from peer reviewed literature maybe I can sway her to weigh in.

Help me with facts based links I can download and present.  Supposedly my aunt will be unconscious.  Supposedly this nonsense helps depression.  Supposedly it is all humane.  I sense, however, an anti-Autistic conspiracy to mainstream electro-shock.  It must be fought.  I also fear that this will be extremely damaging.

Please help me fight it with science.  PM or post the links!  I need it fast, guys and gals.

<Away>

This post was last modified: 04-20-2012 05:56 AM by Nasa Shill.

Electric shock therapy is a valid treatment for depression that does not respond to medication. It has been used for 74 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroconvulsive_therapy

It pre-dates any attempts to wipe out autism.

The JRC uses electric shock as an aversive - torture, in other words. The context is very different.

In modern times, with more treatments available, I suspect that ECT is used a lot less than it used to be.

I was thinking that also 142857 - ("valid treatment") It is not the old version of electro shock.  I have seen it used even on the show House.  The depression must be rather bad I am suprised anyone would mess witth a grandmother - usually the adult in treatment chooses... if your mom thinks it is needed, maybe it is?

(that said, if it were my grandmother I would want to know a lot more)
I am sorry for your pain and worry and that your grandmother is having health difficulties and has to deal with doctors.

I hesitate to say that at least her doctors do not just say - "ah you are old, this is your quality of life, nothing we can do..." as I am one who has good health and stays away from doctors as much as possible... but she is old - as long as no one is forcing her to complain of her ailments to doctors, then perhaps following the doctors advice is what will happen.

I concur, using electric as an adversive on youngsters is different entirely from  its uses in adults to affect brain patterns in depression cases. The human body is a series of electrical impulses....

These days, there are multiple studies using MRI's even to study the brain after the electro shock - so there is proof of the change. (newest studies out in March of this year)

My main concern - this will not help you, it is porbbaly your concer as well, - is the fact that people are put under aneasthesia during procedure ...

This post was last modified: 04-20-2012 02:03 PM by windy.

I cannot imagine giving electro shock to someone so old and frail.  It causes memory loss and nerve/brain damage.  Even the anesthesia is a risk for elderly.  

Do you have power of attorney for her?  What about your other relatives?  She should probably be seeing a gerontologist.  The depression can be part of dementia.  

Maybe concentrate on your aunt's best care rather than trying to save the whole world.

Well, the kinds you are talking about are two different kinds as Windy said. They aren't using it as punishment. But what M said is true... She should probably consult with a gerontologist and make sure the depression is not dementia.

Well, for anyone opposed I would need peer reviewed articles against it to show my mother by Sunday or this is going to happen.

I'll have to jump on board with everyone else on this one. The therapy is usually only done with the consent of the patient, and (I could be wrong but) my understanding is that certain parts of the brain are targeted. It's not simply trying to shock a person into cheering up, or something like that.

It would be good to ask to make sure it's safe for someone her age, though.

http://retina.anatomy.upenn.edu/pdfiles/5524.pdf A woman's personal account of severe and enduring long-term anterograde memory loss due to first unilateral then bilateral ECT.


http://www.electricshocktherapy.info/upl...edberg.doc

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC162130/ Patient's perspectives on ECT-a systematic review

J R Soc Med. 1981 April; 74(4): 283–285
Are patients shocked by ECT?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles...ool=pubmed

Bilateral electroconvulsive therapy seems to be much more prone to the development of memory loss, which  is of greater severity than unilateral (on one side of the head. I imagine, because the brain is essentially, aside from the pineal gland, a bilateral structure, with most parts of the brain duplicated on the other side. The brain has a fantastic ability to compensate for insult and injury, there are limits however, and the ability to regenerate and compensate for injuries to the brain is greater in younger people. Attacking both sides of the brain with bilateral ECT, it makes intuitive sense to me that it would be more prone to developing amnesia and cognitive deficits, after all, the hippocampus; a major and vital substructure is vital for developing memories and very important in memory recall and consolidation etc.)

If your aunt does end up undergoing ECT Nasa, then I would recommend perhaps, taking a 'racetam for a while. Pramiracetam is probably the best of the bunch, while piracetam, the weakest of the 'racetam family is cheapest. Aniracetam is fat-soluble and should be taken with a source of fat, such as a fatty meal, or better yet, fish oil capsules, which are high in omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.

The 'racetams, nefiracetam excluded (which has been shown to cause bollock-shrinkage in dogs, as well as decreased sperm count and unhealthier sperm which are present..of course your aunt is not a dog, and does not HAVE bollocks to shrink, but I would avoid nefiracetam regardless), they all show an excellent safety profile, being pretty much non-toxic. If your aunt likes the idea, I can check up on any potential interactions with medication. 'Racetams should be taken with a choline supplement, as they enhance uptake of choline. They possess some affinity for AMPA type glutamate receptors, as positive allosteric modulators, and as such are likely to induce release of BDNF-brain derived neurotrophic factor, (at least, the true AMPAkines do, I'm going from that as my source for that statement) a neuropeptide which aside from having antidepressant effects, has a potent effect on promoting neuronal survival, and differentiation of new brain cells.

Personally I would avoid ECT, its a treatment with substantial risks, involving a general anaesthetic in combination with a paralytic agent such as succinylcholine and forced O2; because the sux prevents breathing, which has risks of its own, especially if your aunt is elderly. ECT is a treatment of absolute last resort, for the most severe cases of depression refractory to other treatments. I would be inclined to quite literally exhaust all other avenues of treatment before ECT. Seizures can cause brain damage on their own without ECT, and seizures beget further seizures, that is, they leave a person more prone to further seizures. ECT does involve a grand mal tonic-clonic seizure. The paralytic drug prevents broken bones, but memory impairment, often severe seems to be less well understood than it should be by doctors and shrinks. Somewhat better in the scientific literature but best of all by the reports of patients.

Also bear in mind that ECT itself has caused deaths. People have failed to wake up from the general anaesthetic, or died shortly after. I am surprised its still in use, its the only shock therapy from the time when they used things like insulin-induced coma, or convulsant agents like pentylenetetrazole (A GABAa inverse agonist, nasty stuff)
and lobotomy as treatments. Maybe it does have a place, but only in those treatment refractory cases of the greatest severity, as a last resort.

If you want more references digging up, let me know, either in this thread, or better yet, via PM, lest I miss it in here.

Ride the Lightning?

What???? Way to help Shrek.

This post was last modified: 04-21-2012 03:37 PM by Bloke.

Couldnt resist the pun, apologize, but it is wrong to treat your aunt like a criminal

Rel LEstat's links...The first study is from a woman who had 33 treatments back in 1996... they are targeting better now... the 2nd stidy os from 1977 (the one flew over the cookoo next era). The 3rd one is from 1981  - the age of the dinosaur with what was known about brains....

yes, I think focus on the fact of her age...anesthesia... make certain the doctor doing them has proper credentials and is vetted etc., make sure you question which area is targeted etc.,

I hear that memory, if affected, is temporary... from "new" studies today...
http://www.nhs.uk/news/2012/03march/Page...nContent  "'Electric shock' therapy may ease depression by changing the brain

Scientists have discovered how electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) works in people with severe depression, The Independent today reported. During ECT, patients are anaesthetised and given a controlled electric current through the brain. But although ECT has been used to treat severe depression for decades, how or why it works has never been clear.

However, a new study has investigated this by performing brain scans on nine patients with severe depression before and after their ECT sessions. It found that, after treatment, the patients’ depression improved and there was a reduction in the connections in an area of the brain previously linked to both depression and cognitive function.

The main limitations to this study are its small size and the fact that it didn’t report what happened to patients who weren’t given ECT treatment. This means that it’s not possible to say what changes (if any) would have occurred over time to the patients not given ECT. However, it may be difficult to obtain a control group of similar people with severe depression who would not be offered ECT or an alternative treatment.

ECT is used by the NHS to treat severe cases of depression under specific circumstances and can have benefit for certain patients, although it can also have side effects. This type of research should help scientists to understand how it delivers its effects, and possibly develop other ways to achieve similar results with fewer side effects.



Where did the story come from?

The study was carried out by researchers from the University of Aberdeen and the University of Dundee, and was funded by the Chief Scientist Office of Scotland and the Scottish Funding Council. The study was published in the peer-reviewed journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (PNAS).

The news sources have provided reasonable coverage of this study, although they do not discuss the lack of a control group receiving no ECT. Including a control group helps to establish a treatment’s effects as it allows researchers to see what patients experience when given a particular treatment and compare this with what happens when they are not.

There might be some difficulty in recruiting a control group who would not receive ECT, as the patients involved have severe depression that had not responded to other treatments such as medication. Therefore, not offering ECT might not be ethical."


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/articl...ssion.html

Not really that sensitive huh?

Sometimes downright insensitive once in a while

This post was last modified: 04-22-2012 05:58 AM by Shrek.

Thanks.  I appreciate the links.