Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) helps patients with severe
depression who don't respond to other treatments, and should be
considered more often in the earlier stages of the illness,
according to an article in the May issue of the Southern Medical
Journal, published by the Southern Medical Association and
Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.
"Electroconvulsive therapy has been shown to be a highly
effective, safe, and even life-saving treatment for persistent
and severe depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia,"
writes Dr. Stephen Taylor of the University of Louisville. Dr.
Taylor reviews the history and current use of ECT for depression
and other psychiatric disorders, making the case for increased
use of this research-proven therapy. The idea of inducing
seizures to treat psychiatric disorders has a long history, but
it wasn't until the 1950s—a time when there were few effective
treatments for serious mental illness—that scientific studies
confirmed the effectiveness of ECT