E C T

[Miss Ludie]

I am very interested in what goes on during ECT. Can anyone talk me through it? Is it painful? Is there a chance of blood vessel damage from the sedation meds?

Please I am very serious. If you have viewed this please share.

[Larry77, RN]

I would be more concerned with the residual effects rather than "blood vessel damage"....what do you mean...you are worried about infiltration and tissue damage because of it?

I worked psych for 5 years and actually saw great results from ECT in severely depressed older people (>50yr). These were difficult cases where medications were not working and the patients desperately needed something that works.

When I have seen it go bad it didn't help the depression at all and the patient had short term memory loss which could have gotten better with time (we were acute care facility).

[elkpark]

https://allnurses.com/forums/f46/ect-treatment-against-112333.html

Here is a link to an older thread here discussing ECT.

Current ECT is nothing like the scenes in horror movies and old movies! I've been a psych nurse for >20 years, and have seen it help many people. I would take ECT myself before I'd take a lot of the psych drugs we give people. I've never seen anyone have a bad outcome from ECT (which I certainly can't say about the meds!) other than, as Larry mentioned, the treatment not being v. effective for a particular client and some minor short-term memory loss which usually resolves quickly.

It's not painful because the client is anesthetized (put to sleep, the same as for surgery) before the procedure to avoid the physical effects of the grand mal seizure which is the purpose of the treatment. The main risks are side effects of the anesthesia.