By ANDREW BRIDGES The Associated Press Friday, January 26, 2007 WASHINGTON -- A novel machine designed to treat depression by zapping the brain with magnetic pulses shows no clear evidence of working, federal health advisers concluded Friday. The device is called the Neurostar TMS, or transcranial magnetic stimulation, system. It uses magnetic energy to induce electrical currents in the region of the brain associated with mood. Neuronetics Inc. believes those currents stimulate neurons in the region and relieve the symptoms of depression. The Malvern, Pa., company seeks clearance from the Food and Drug Administration to market the machine _ something the panel's lukewarm reception may make less likely. The FDA isn't required to follow the advice of its outside experts, but it usually does. A ... (more...)

Added: Jan 26, 2007 7:31 pm | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

Dec 6 2006 Reuters Health Information NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Dec 06 - Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is comparable to pharmacologic treatment in preventing relapse of depression, but both approaches have limited efficacy, investigators report in the December Archives of General Psychiatry. While electroconvulsive therapy is extremely effective for acute treatment of major depression, ECT is also being used as continuation or maintenance treatment (C-ECT) to prevent relapse. However, there are few data to support such use, note Dr. Charles H. Kellner and colleagues at five different academic clinical centers. Dr. Kellner, from the UMDNJ New Jersey Medical School in Newark, and members of the CORE group (Consortium for Research in ECT) conducted a two-phase trial with 531 patients with primary major depressive disorder. The first ... (more...)

Added: Dec 22, 2006 12:52 pm | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

Archives of General Psychiatry Dec 2006 A Multisite Study From the Consortium for Research in Electroconvulsive Therapy (CORE) Charles H. Kellner, MD; Rebecca G. Knapp, PhD; Georgios Petrides, MD; Teresa A. Rummans, MD; Mustafa M. Husain, MD; Keith Rasmussen, MD; Martina Mueller, PhD; Hilary J. Bernstein, DHA; Kevin O’Connor, MD; Glenn Smith, PhD; Melanie Biggs, PhD; Samuel H. Bailine, MD; Chitra Malur, MD; Eunsil Yim, MS; Shawn McClintock, MS; Shirlene Sampson, MD; Max Fink, MD Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2006;63:1337-1344. Background  Although electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has been shown to be extremely effective for the acute treatment of major depression, it has never been systematically assessed as a strategy for relapse prevention. Objective  To evaluate the comparative efficacy of continuation ECT (C-ECT) and the combination of lithium carbonate ... (more...)

Added: Dec 12, 2006 4:19 pm | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

Shock Treatment: Efficacy, Memory Loss, and Brain Damage – Psychiatry’s Don’t Look, Don’t Tell Policy by Richard A. Warner This downloadable paper was written by a paralegal in an ECT case that is currently on appeal. He researched the subject for two years, and decided to put that research to use, in this paper. Shock Treatment: Efficacy, Memory Loss, and Brain Damage PDF: 300k

Added: Sep 26, 2006 11:16 am | 1 Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

September 19, 2006 New York Times By JANE E. BRODY For an older woman I know who was suffering from “implacable depression” that refused to yield to any medications, electroconvulsive therapy — popularly called shock therapy — was a lifesaver. And Kitty Dukakis, wife of the former governor of Massachusetts and 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, says ECT, as doctors call it, gave her back her life, which had been rendered nearly unlivable by unrelenting despair and the alcohol she used to assuage it.Neither woman has experienced the most common side effect of ECT: memory disruption, though Mrs. Dukakis recalls nothing of a five-day trip to Paris she took after her treatment. The television host Dick Cavett, who also had the treatment, wrote in People ... (more...)

Added: Sep 18, 2006 9:01 pm | 3 Comments |  Email This Post  | Print

Update: The full article has been published in Nature and may be read here in PDF format. An unpublished article, send by an insider to ect.org, reveals what ECT activists have been saying for years: ECT does cause cognitive damage. The "running title" of the article is "Cognitive Effects of ECT." The article is scheduled to be published in Neuropsychopharmacology in January. --- 4,247 Words 5 Tables 5 Figures The Cognitive Effects of Electroconvulsive Therapy in Community Settings Harold A. Sackeim1,2,3, Joan Prudic1,2, Rice Fuller4, John Keilp2,5, Philip W. Lavori6, and Mark Olfson*,2,7 1 Department of Biological Psychiatry, New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY; 2Department of Psychiatry, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York, NY; 3 Department of Radiology, College ... (more...)

Added: Aug 6, 2006 12:21 pm | 14 Comments |  Email This Post  | Print

ECT (ELECTRO CONVULSIVE THERAPY): NEED FOR DEBATE Center for Advocacy in Mental Health A research center of Bapu Trust, Pune, India INTRODUCTION The World Health Report, 2001 of the WHO is the most recent among a line of reports and documents suggesting the tremendous increase in the burden of mental disorders in developing regions. Several researchers (for example Patel, 1999) have underscored the "social determinants model" of mental health, where poor social and economic development is linked with increased risk for mental ill health. The poor and vulnerable groups are seen as being at high risk for common mental disorders (CMD). The research of the last decade on gender and mental health has also shown the greater vulnerability of men and women to substance ... (more...)

Added: Jul 29, 2006 12:39 am | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

The Journal of ECT 2002; 18(2):90-94 Efficacy of Electroconvulsive Therapy Combined with Antipsychotic Medication in Treatment-Resistant Schizophrenia Wai Kwong Tang, M.D.; Gabor S. Ungvari, M.D., Ph.D. Summary: This study examined the short-term efficacy of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) combined with antipsychotic medication in treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS). Fifteen patients with TRS from an in-patient psychiatric rehabilitation unit participated. Patients completed a course of ECT consisting of 8 to 20 sessions, while their antipsychotic medications were continued throughout the study. Patients were assessed at baseline, 1 week, 1 month, and 2 months after their last ECT session. Assessment instruments included the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS), Global Assessment Scale (GAS), Clinical Global Impression (CGI), Nurses' Observation Scale for In-Patient Evaluation, and occupational therapists' rating of the patients' ... (more...)

Added: Jul 29, 2006 12:10 am | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

May 2003 The Psychologist Vol 16 No 5 A shocking treatment? Lucy Johnstone A psychologist recently suggested that commenting on electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) was outside our arena of professional responsibility (Gelsthorpe, 1997). I disagree. Although clinical psychologists do not prescribe ECT, those who work in adult mental health or with the elderly will inevitably be present at meetings in which ECT is suggested as an intervention, and may have patients who have been given it. ECT may be a factor in an assessment of memory or cognitive impairment. Physical treatments such as ECT convey important messages about the nature and causes of mental distress, which may contradict or undermine our psychological interventions. ECT may be a source of psychological trauma and distress in its own right. ... (more...)

Added: Jul 28, 2006 11:51 pm | 2 Comments |  Email This Post  | Print

Full report from the UK on the usage of ECT. 2003 Note that the use of ECT in schizophrenia, based on the evidence, is not recommended. Someone might want to send the clue train to New York state hospitals. Download: 59ectfullguidance.pdf (pdf)

Added: Jul 27, 2006 8:31 pm | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

PR Newswire; 11/5/2004 NEW YORK, and WINSTON-SALEM, N.C., Nov. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- The Committee for Truth in Psychiatry (CTIP) - a national organization of recipients of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) - has challenged a new study from Wake Forest University, calling it scientifically worthless. The study claims that treatment with ECT improves patients' quality of life and functioning. "The author, W. Vaughn McCall, did not disclose that he is president of the ECT industry trade organization, the Association for Convulsive Therapy, which could bias his research towards minimizing the risks of ECT," says CTIP director Linda Andre. McCall undertook his study after the British government recommended that ECT be used with caution because there is not enough good research on its ... (more...)

Added: Jul 26, 2006 7:07 pm | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

Last Resort Therapy The Record (Bergen County, NJ) 10-25-2005 Jennifer Hughes CORRECTION: An article about electroshock treatments that appeared in the Oct. 25 Health section incorrectly reported the name of the founder of the Committee for Truth in Psychiatry. The group was founded by Marilyn Rice. (PUBLISHED THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2005, PAGE A02.) When most people think of electroshock therapy, they picture Jack Nicholson writhing in agony on a gurney in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," but "Jane" has never seen the film. The 52-year-old doctor from Morris County, reluctantly agreed to ECT (the procedure is now called electroconvulsive therapy) in February after her 30-year battle with manic depression had reached its terrible crescendo. Medications no longer worked and the cocktail of drugs brought nighttime ... (more...)

Added: Jul 26, 2006 6:58 pm | 2 Comments |  Email This Post  | Print

LOS ANGELES: As of April 1, 2003, Medicare will cease all national coverage of "multiple seizure" electroshock treatments, after an investigation revealed the practice is unworkable and places patients at risk. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) conducted the investigation after a December 2001 report by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found multiple seizure electroshock had "none of the claimed benefits and many risks," including "profound confusional states." Also known as multiple monitored ECT (MMECT), Medicare has been paying out $500,000 a year for its use. On February 24 this year, CMS said that Medicare would no longer cover this practice, stating, "The clinical effectiveness of multiple-seizure electroconvulsive therapy [ECT] has not been verified by scientifically controlled ... (more...)

Added: Jul 25, 2006 1:03 am | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

This is an outline of a paper I gave at the 2001 Mental Health Statistics Conference (SAMHSA) in Washington, DC. ECT Reporting - The Statistical Gap Shortly before she left office as SAMHSA Director, Dr. Nelba Chavez spoke of the pockets of mental health research that existed. These were pockets of good, solid research, but she encouraged those in the field to push on and to try to close the enormous gaps that exist in research today. The field of electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT, is littered with chasms where research simply does not exist. This paper will highlight those gaps, as well as propose new directions for ECT research. The most basic question, how many people have ECT each year in the US, is ... (more...)

Added: Jul 24, 2006 11:12 pm | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

20+ pages of information concerning Harold Sackeim's application for continuing grant money for "Continuation Pharmacotherapy Following ECT." Includes progress notes, statistics. Highlights: Want to prove his hypothesis that those who don't respond well to meds also don't respond well to ECT. (My comment: if you respond to meds, then why do you need ECT?) High relapse rate, despite added medications. Read full application: sackheim_grant_info.pdf

Added: Jul 24, 2006 10:49 pm | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print