New Shock Therapy Procedure Works With Fewer Side Effects
May 15, 2000 -- Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) can be an effective treatment for depression, particularly when other treatments have failed, but the memory loss associated with it makes some people afraid.
However, two new studies point to a new way to administer the treatment that achieves positive results similar to the traditional way, but with fewer bad side effects.
Traditional ECT usually requires that a shock be administered to both sides of the brain. But giving a higher level of shock to only the right side of the brain produces fewer memory problems and can be as effective as giving high-level shocks to both sides of the brain, according to the studies in the May issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry. The catch is that FDA regulations limit the amount of electricity that current equipment can produce to a level that is below the level researchers found to be most effective. Questions still remain about exactly which level of shock will produce the best effect.
The problem is that patients in older age groups, the group most patients fall into, need a high amount of shock to produce a good effect, according to Richard Abrams, MD, of the Chicago Medical School in Illinois. "Existing ECT devices cannot give enough electrical energy because of the limitations imposed upon them," says Abrams, who also is director of Somatics Inc., a company that manufactures and distributes ECT equipment.
Abrams wrote a commentary published in the same issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry in which he urges the FDA to act to allow high-stimulus ECT devices in the U.S. Such double-dose devices are routinely available in other parts of the world, including the United Kingdom, Canada, and Mexico.
"I agree with Abrams that the FDA has no scientific basis for limiting the output of ECT devices to the level they are now limited to. There's no justification for limiting the devices to the amount of energy arbitrarily established in 1984. ... The people in Europe and other parts of the world where they don't have that restriction really are better off," says Max Fink, MD, of Long Island Jewish Medical Center/Hillside Hospital in Queens, N.Y.