What was electroshock therapy used for 1940s?
Electroconvulsive therapy had changed from being a first-line treatment of depression in the 1940s and 1950s to merely an approach to treatment-resistant depression in the 1990s.
When did electroshock therapy begin?
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is used to treat patients with certain types of mental illness, including severe depression, severe mania, and catatonia. It was first developed in the late 1930s, with the first recorded treatments at McLean Hospital taking place in 1941.
When did electroshock therapy stop being used?
The use of ECT declined until the 1980s, “when use began to increase amid growing awareness of its benefits and cost-effectiveness for treating severe depression”.
Was electroshock therapy used in the 1950s?
ECT, introduced during a period of unprecedented therapeutic optimism in psychiatry, became the mainstay of biological treatments for psychiatric disorders during the 1940s and 1950s. Other somatic treatments were introduced during this period, but ECT was the only treatment that flourished.
Can ECT damage the brain?
The review of literature and present evidence suggests that ECT has a demonstrable impact on the structure and function of the brain. However, there is a lack of evidence at present to suggest that ECT causes brain damage.
Why is ECT controversial?
Why is ECT so controversial? After 60 years of use, ECT is still the most controversial psychiatric treatment. Much of the controversy surrounding ECT revolves around its effectiveness vs. the side effects, the objectivity of ECT experts, and the recent increase in ECT as a quick and easy solution, instead of long-term psychotherapy or hospitalization.
What is the history of electric shock therapy?
Electroconvulsive shock therapy, discovered by Ugo Cerletti and Lucio Bini in Rome, in 1937. The advent of treatment of the psychoses by using physiological shock increased the opposition between two schools of thought within psychiatry: the psychological and biological ones.
Is the practice of ECT ethical?
The ethical principles that support the establishment of a treatment by ECT are those relating to any action in psychiatry and are based on the one hand on the founding principles of bioethics: autonomy, beneficence, non-malfeasance, and justice, and on the other hand on the information on the technical and consent to this type of care.
Is ECT an Ethical Treatment?
Since ECT is considered to be an established treatment, it can be used as an active comparator in a noninferiority paradigm, avoiding the ethical dilemma of treating very ill patients with a placebo treatment.