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The use of electroconvulsive therapy in elderly depressive patients

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Abstract

Though widely used and extensively investigated, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) remains a controversial treatment. Attitudes to ECT amongst doctors and patients tend to be polarized. Extreme antagonists refer to ECT as ‘electrocution’ and regard it as a primitive blunderbuss treatment which causes brain damage. This attitude is commoner amongst recipients of ECT than amongst psychiatrists. At the other extreme is the view, held more commonly by psychiatrists than their patients, that ECT is dramatically effective and the treatment of choice in severe depressive illness. These polarized attitudes have led to attempts on the one hand to ban ECT, and on the other hand to the indiscriminate and uncritical overuse of ECT.

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Authors
  1. Katy Malcolm
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  2. Malcolm Peet
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Wales College of Medicine, UK

    Karabi Ghose (Honorary Consultant in Geriatric Medicine) (Honorary Consultant in Geriatric Medicine)

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© 1989 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Malcolm, K., Peet, M. (1989). The use of electroconvulsive therapy in elderly depressive patients. In: Ghose, K. (eds) Antidepressants for Elderly People. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-3436-9_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-3436-9_14

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-412-32460-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4899-3436-9

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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