RT Journal
A1 González E
T1 UPdate on electroconvulsive therapy
JF JAMA
JO JAMA
YR 1979
FD April 27
VO 241
IS 17
SP 1779
OP 1779
DO 10.1001/jama.1979.03290430007003
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.1979.03290430007003
AB The patient is severely depressed, deluded, hallucinating, and has stopped eating. Major tranquilizers and antidepressants have not removed his symptoms, and psychotherapy is not appropriate. Treatment of choice: six 50-s grand mal seizures, to be induced by electrical stimulatinn of the brain three times a week for two weeks.Contrary to popular belief, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is still considered the most effective treatment for endogenous depression. Several refinements in recent years have made it more acceptable. And the old-fashioned method, conventional "bilateral" stimulation, still seems to be best.At a recent conference on affective disorders in Chicago, Richard Abrams, MD, professor and vicechairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Chicago Medical School, estimated that ECT removes or markedly improves severe endogenous depression in nine of ten cases. With the conventional method, introduced in the United States in 1939, placement of the electrodes is bifrontotemporal. With unilateral ECT, which came into