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It would be nice to know ahead of time if a treatment would work. Unfortunately, no one cal tell the future: not for cancer treatment and not for mental illness treatment like electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) either.
But very smart people try to figure out what might predict the outcome of treatments. Especially treatments like ECT, a hotly debated, and much maligned treatment. That's the good news. And the bad news.
In a retrospective chart review of depressive and bipolar patients in a Netherlands hospital, of those who received ECT, 65.8% met the standards for remission. The only predictor of response found was the duration of the index series.
The good part here is that medication failure did not predict response; so theoretically, no matter how many medications you have failed you have an equal chance of response to ECT.
The bad part is that the more times you get ECT in your initial series, the more likely you are to respond. I say this is bad because the more times you do ECT the more chances are you're going to suffer more and worsening cognitive side effects too.
It's something to consider when thinking about starting or stopping ECT treatment.
Image by rolffimages / 123RF Stock Photo.
Natasha Tracy is an award-winning writer, speaker, advocate, and consultant from the Pacific Northwest. She has been living with bipolar disorder for 26 years and has written more than 2000 articles on the subject.
Find more of Natasha’s work in her acclaimed book: "Lost Marbles: Insights into My Life with Depression & Bipolar" on Amazon.
Connect with Natasha at the social media links below.
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I wish I had never had ect. It may have temporarily snapped me outa my BPD cycles but its made life really hard. Almost two years after and still battling to regain my brain. Hate it. Will never seek treatment again because living like this is not worth it. They will never shock me again.
ECT did not work for me. It made me more suicidal. I have memory problems and other stuff. I was in agonising pain and couldn’t walk but they kept zapping away until l realised l could sa
y no more.