Shock therapy improves quality of life

Severely depressed patients who are given electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) - commonly known as shock therapy - experience improved health-related quality of life that lasts for at least 6 months. Although ECT is well established as the most efficacious treatment for depression, it is still subject to controversy. Some of the controversy continues to be stirred up by well-organised philosophical opposition to ECT, which claims that ECT has overwhelmingly negative effects. Researchers from Wake Forest University Health Sciences in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA, did a study to shed some light on this very basic idea: Are people better off or worse for having had ECT? They followed a group of 283 severely depressed patients who underwent a course of ECT - on an average, seven sessions. Patients were assessed before treatment was started, approximately 4 days after their last ECT session and then again at 24 weeks. Health-related quality of life significantly improved immediately after ECT in 87 percent of the patients and this was sustained at 24 weeks in 78 percent. Even though some people didn't meet full criteria for remission, they experienced some improvement in symptoms and correspondingly they report some global improvement in quality of life. Some agencies have recommended that ECT be restricted in use because of perceived gaps in knowledge regarding its effects on health-related quality of life. The above results indicate that a restrictive public policy toward ECT may not be warranted.