Over 20-odd years I watched my mother with depression receive regular ECT, which did nothing for her. It certainly affected her memory long before she succumbed to dementia. I have a brother who was suicidal or play-acting as such. He received "more sophisticated" treatment and that left him more cretinous than I would have thought possible.

In it's own way ECT is as barbaric as was frontal lobotomy.

Drug treatment and therapy surely must be the first line of attack on depression, not late medieval brain "fritzing."

I don’t really know enough to comment either way on this ECT treatment though I'm inclined to agree with Tom's comments.

It might offer hope as a useful last resort for treating very severe depression and I can certainly understand how someone in this situation might think the associated risks are worth taking. I can’t add much on this but I can offer information that may be of use to people suffering the less severe though no less debilitating cyclic and endogenous depression. This type of depression is commonly a result of underlying hypoglycaemic disease, which isn't usually diagnosed as it's not a condition well understood by most conventional medical practitioners.

When hypoglycaemic disease is present, as with diabetes, the pancreas doesn't handle sugar properly. Instead of producing no insulin as in diabetes, it produces too much. When sugar is ingested, there’s an initial spike in blood sugar levels followed by a drop to very low levels. This low level of glucose in the blood means that the brain becomes starved of glucose, which in turn leads to depression and as well memory impairment, poor concentration and lethargy.

This is one of the reasons why the incidence of depression is becoming ever more prevalent. There is just so much sugar in the modern western diet and those who have this inherent susceptibility will be affected by it. An estimated 60-70% of people suffering from depression have underlying hypoglycaemic disease so it might be worth looking into if you're a depression sufferer.

It’s a lifetime condition but it can be managed very successfully and very naturally through the adoption of simple dietary and nutritional measures. I had lived with depression all my life until I learnt of this and made these changes and would certainly recommend it to anyone else in this situation.

ECT what no one is talking about

My first wife had ECT in UK, before I met her, for depression following the unraveling of her first marriage and death of her father. I cannot really say what effect it had on her, not knowing her before, although after she was still “prone” to depressive states, particularly post childbirth. If I recall correctly, it was inflicted upon her involuntarily and considered a suitable remedy at the time. She was committed by her first husband and got released when her mother went and kicked up hell and demanded her daughters release.

Now the view of the experts is changing.

“Chelmsford deep sleep therapy” was another “procedure” which was found to be less-than-beneficial to patients, although some “scientific” research must have been undertaken before hand to justify it.

http://www.cpa.org.au/garchve2/992chel.html refers

Off topic and not to labour the point, I cannot stop wondering, all these “expert” opinions on global warming, will they wax and wane in the years to come too and fall into disrepute?

Strange, I can almost feel it happening.

1. No need to try to discredit sources of information that are not creditable in the first instance. I’m a researcher by profession, I have a Hons degree in psychology, and I’ve read the available literature reasonably widely. (What’s a “wolve”?)

2. Voluntary agreement is the preferred option where that is available, obviously. The point is that many patients needing ECT are not able to give true “informed consent” due to the difficulties of processing complex information when seriously depressed. Similarly, persons under the age of 16, affected by dementia or with an IQ of less than 70 cannot (generally) give informed consent. (This does not preclude their opinions being sought on decisions that affect them, which is generally done).

3. ECT treatment does not involve the instantaneous disappearance of all symptoms at the push of a button. Nor does it does not necessarily follow that a patient “should” have an improved memory immediately (or days) after treatment. Indeed, impaired memory seems to have a valuable function (namely, to forget as much of the depressive / treatment episode as possible). It can’t distinguish between that and remembering a name. ECT treatment also takes about a dozen treatments to generate benefits over the longer term.

4. It’s fine to seek advice from a doctor, but he or she has no obligation to assist you personally. Did it occur that they may have been, I don’t know, treating actual patients? There is plenty of valid, free, research-based information in the public domain – eg. BeyondBlue, the Black Dog Institute – however you’ve frequently relied on sources that are unreliable or invalid

5. I didn’t say that ECT reduces IQ or anything like it. What I said was that serious depression reduced my IQ at one stage. That was a short-hand way of saying that the disorder impaired my ability to process information, or "cognitive ability”. Poor concentration, for example, is often used as an indicator of clinical depression. (Thanks for the support Stickman!) (I'm a "she" BTW!)

6. Experts commenting on issues like "global warming" is a completely different ballgame. Many would argue that making predictions is not research, even though the redictions may be research-based. No research method or field is infallible, but at least the main methodology in medicine is empirical experimentation with error margins that are quantifiable.

Not all "scientists" work in the same way and the reliability of "expert comment" can vary markedly between fields.

7. Counselling – shown to be quite effective in many contexts – often does not work with ECT candidates due to the cognitive impairment. A seriously depressed person can have a limited ability to absorb and process information or discuss an issue.

Sorry Sam, but please, if you aren’t prepared to take the time to understand the issues properly, please report on things where you'll at least do less damage.

Unfortunately, you are confused / misinformed / unclear on a range of aspects of this issue in your article, including the concept of "informed consent". The crux of this isn't about "pursuading" anyone to do anything. It's about placing patients (who do have the capability) in a position of informed knowledge about the advantages and disadvantages of various treatment options, so that they are in a position to decide what they wish to do.

"I reckon" and "some bloke I met" are not valid research methodologies and it's completely absurd to reject what is known about ECT and mental health issues in favour of these approaches to evaluating ECT as a treatment option

Both my mother-in-law and father were recipients of ECT treatment for chronic depression and underwent many treatments. After many years, both decided to not continue because of the negative side-effects, and to continue with the depression as the lesser of two evils. Neither of these people knew each other and arrived at their decisions independently. My mother-in-law was suicidal in her depressions and needed constant monitoring. I personally knew of several others, four in fact, who had undergone ECT and eventually chose not to continue. In my mother-in-law and father's case, both discontinued contact with their psychiatrists. I wonder how this was recorded. As a 'cure'? It most certainly was not. Yet their experience was, to me, most telling. I realise this is not a representative number in scientific terms but 6 people telling me the same, with no person ever telling me anything positive about the benefits of ECT, leaves me with an impression that after 60-70 years of use, and with still little understanding of it, perhaps it is not as good as doctors tell us it is. I, like many of the population, have experienced episodes of extreme depression, only one of which drove me to seek the help of a psychiatrist, but had he mentioned ECT as a potential treatment, I would not have continued seeing him. In any case, I was lucky and the depressions ran their course, eventually lifting. I realise that not everybody is so lucky, as was the case with my mother-in-law, who had the illness from the age of thirty until her death at 76, but still I have extreme reservations in its use and find myself unable to come to terms with it as a useful tool. I believe it only camouflages symptoms.