It is certainly true ECT is alive and well. I have not been involved for many years but it still goes on in our hospital, though not in the numbers of 25 years ago. Here in the UK, to the anaesthetic we always add a muscle relaxant which almost totally, but it is true not completely, obscures the epileptic fit. In this guise the treatment is safe and appears almost civilised. However I was always told that in the US medics believe that the fit is part of the treatment so relaxants are not given so the patient undergoes a full spasming fit, albeit whilst unconscious from the anaesthetic, and that bones are sometimes broken. I have always suspected this was a medical myth, and the US psychiatrists are not such a cavalier crew. Can anyone enlighten me?
Rob