This was just a news story in Australia about a Syrian refuge who died of cancer. He’d been fleeing government persecution and torture in Syria and had managed to get as far as Australia (how much further could he go?) and got stuck in an internment camp. Whilst there he had stomach cramps (this was the cancer) for which he was given panadol (paracetamol) while waiting for the department of immigration to verify his claim. They didn’t - so he got got depressed. This is understandable, away from anyone he knew, locked up in a desert and about to be extradited back to Syria.
He had acute depression and was sent off to a psychiatrist to get better. So the quack decided to use electro-convulsive therapy on him. I just can’t get over this.
I am aware that ECT is a very useful tool for depression and can work wonders with people (my neighbour is a nurse at the local psychiatric institution). However couldn’t the doctor have thought a bit about this? Someone is fleeing state-sanctioned torture and they decide to hook him up to a couple of electrodes? And they expected this to work?
On the bright side, not terribly too many decades ago, a shrink with a similar mindset might have thought it would be a good idea to stick an icepick up under his eyelid and slash his forebrain to hamburger. So that’s progress, of a sort.
Well granted something like that in the US would never happen as well as many other parts in the world. But ECT isn’t really that bad, it just gets a bad rap. I almost considered it once myself but my psychitrist wouldn’t authorize it - I had been on 15 different drugs for severe depression and none of them worked, thankfully I naturally came out of that depression before I pulled myself to push for ECT.
It’s mostly only used in cases of extreme depression in which antidepressants are ineffective (In most countries anyway). The basic procedure is not barbaric as the association most people have with it is. Modern ECT bears no resemblance to what you see in something like “One Flew Over the Cookoo’s nest.” You take a sleeping pill and a muscle relaxant while they feed you oxygen. Once asleep, muscles relaxed, a light seizure is produced (lasting up to a minute) by a brief electrical charge to the scalp. A half hour later the person wakes up. That’s it.
After a half dozen to a dozen treatments the ECT therapy is complete.
It’s kinda like going to the dentist a bunch of times.
Anyway, it’s a very safe painless treatment that has statistically shown to be quite effective for 90% of patients whom have had it. The only real side effect is temporary memory loss in some patients. And in rare instances, slight permanent memory loss.
Studies have failed to show any form of brain damage resulting from this procedure.
I saw an interview about this on this morning’s news, and things are a little different to what the first reports implied.
The refugee in question was seen by the detention centre doctor 7 times in a period of 6 months and complained of the stomach pain only on the first and last occasion - his medical records don’t show him complaining that the problem was unresolved during the intervening consultations, and of course doctors rely on information provided by their patients to assess what further action is needed.
The treatment given to him had nothing to do with the status of his application - detainees are given whatever medical treatment is necessary, irrespective of the anticipated outcome of their application for refugee status.
I’ve not come across any references to the ECT so far in our media, but the psychiatric evaluation which was made public on this morning’s new indicated post-traumatic stress disorder and flashbacks related to torture in his country of origin. If ECT was in fact administered, then it would have been after clinical intervention such as antidepressants had failed.
It isn’t true that his claim hadn’t been heard - it had in fact been rejected and an appeal was scheduled for 2 weeks time. We currently have around 3000 detainees awaiting determination of there claims for refugee status, with up to a further 600 expected to arrive by boat this month. Determining the validity of these claims is often along and arduous process in the absence of supporting documentation, and the rate of arrivals now outstrips the capacity of the system to process the applications.
In Australia, detainees who’ve had their application rejected have both judicial and administrative appeals open to them, and where they exercise all of these processes (as they quite expectedly do) the final outcome can take years to be determined.
Right now we have 5 detainees who’ve exhausted all avenues of appeal without success and we’re unable to find another country willing to take them - for now they will remain here as detainees, rather than being deported.
Lack of documentation is a real stumbling block in the rapid processing of our detainees, as is the increasing rate at which people are arriving here illegally. Around 70% of applications for refugee status are ultimately approved, but no-one wants to see Australia become the haven for war criminals it once was again, and the government is very aware that the people smugglers often advise people to destroy what documentation they have.
I’m curious about the detention and processing procedures for people who arrive in other countries claiming refugee status, and how they differ significantly from ours.
One of our biggest problems in respect of our detention centres is that they are staffed by corrections officers, and that the centres themselves are located in remote areas. This is something which will only worsen if the influx of people seeking refugee status continues to outstrip our capacity to accommodate them and process them.
I don’t know very much about this myself, but it seems to me that Canada gets quite a few refugees. That might be a place to start if you’re interested in this topic.
I have had to take care of victims of ECT after they were done with them, in the Psych hospital I worked at. All of the shrinks I know considered it barbaric and refused to do it. We got patients occasionally (from other shrinks) who were subjected to it, and they had to be hospitalized afterwards. SAFE AND PAINLESS MY ASS! These people, when they came too, were complete basket cases. they couldnt remember who they were, where they were, They would become extremely paranoid and hide behind the furniture. Often they have to be taught how to drive a car again and do simple things they have been doing all thier lives. We have a family friend who was subjected to this, she was a extremely talanted artist. She has to learn to paint all over again, start from scratch.
My Father is a shrink and a graduate school psych professor(semi retired). He writes Psych text books. I asked him about ECT and said his theory is pretty much that it is torture. He said basically your are punishing the patient, and the subconscious corrects the behaviour that lead to the patient being shocked, to avoid it happening again. Again most competent shrinks wont even consider it, but there are quite a few quacks who see it as an easy fix, and they get paid to clean up the mess afterward, for the next couple of years.
Psychiatric MEDICATION has tended to cause permanent brain damage as a side effect. ECT does not cause permanent brain damage as a side effect. It isn’t a side effect. To say that ECT causes permanent brain damage as a side effect is like saying eating has the side effect of causing you to lose your appetite. It’s how it “works”. Actually the “feeling better thanx to ECT” part is the side effect. A common temporary side effect of brain damage is euphoria.
Memory loss–permanent and/or temporary–does of course often accompany brain damage.
IANAP, but, I’m a med student and have discussed ECT with several pshchiatrists. None so far has described it as barbaric. In fact, for patients with SEVERE depression, unresponsive to drug therapy, ECT can literally be a lifesaver.
IMHO, many in this thread have falsely exaggerated views concerning the side effects of ECT. This article is a recent review of ECT side effects. I don’t have access to the full article now, but I’ll get it when I get the chance. Below, is the abstract:
Some folks in this thread have expressed strong personal beliefs regarding side effects of ECT. Can you find citations to back them?
Oh, good gravy. They’re not all beings sent from Satan.
ECT is generally used where other treatment(s) have not been successful. There are a few reasons for this, IIRC:
It can go way wrong.
You’re messing with the brain and you can fry someone.
It’s seen as this incredibly evil thing. Don’t want to upset the general public.
I agree that using ECT is really not smart (unethical and a bunch of other stuff, too). However, let’s please not lump all other psychiatrists in with these two people. I had a psych a few years back who contributed in a very key way to helping me not take my own life. In a way I owe him as much. So, Morrison’s Lament, I cannot help but take exception to your statement that “Psychiatrists are basically one of two things: liars or morons.” It just plain isn’t true.
“On the bright side, not terribly too many decades ago, a shrink with a similar mindset might have thought it would be a good idea to stick an icepick up under his eyelid and slash his forebrain to hamburger. So that’s progress, of a sort.”
Egaz Moniz(sp?), 1949 Nobel Prize winner for Science for his development of a frontal lobotomy. It did get more sophisticated than that, but the main ingredients were:
Go by way of the eyeball to someone’s frontal lobe (done, as things got more advanced, with a hollow needle of some sort, I believe.
Slice up matter there.
Observe lack of emotion.
"Well granted something like that in the US would never happen as well as many other parts in the world."
"The only real side effect is temporary memory loss in some patients. And in rare instances, slight permanent memory loss."
From the same site:
“One of the unexpected benefits of transcranial electroshock was that it provoked retrograde amnesia, or a loss of all memory of events immediately anterior to the shock, including its perception.”
So they couldn’t remember it being done, and as such couldn’t say (if they would have otherwise), for example, “What the bleeding fuck’ve you done to me?”
"Studies have failed to show any form of brain damage resulting from this procedure."
I’m sorry . . . I was under the impression that not being able to remember anything before the ECT was memory loss and brain damage. How silly of me:rolleyes:
mblackwell, that link should prove to be useful for your concerns about anaesthesia.
Finally . . . “[ECT] is the only somatic therapy from the 30’s that remains in widespread use today. Between 100,000 and 150,000 patients are subjected to ECT every year in the USA, under strictly defined medical conditions.”
Yeah, psychs aren’t perfect. But there are guidelines they have to follow (someone else can do another search to find them), and things have improved since the inception of the procedure.
I’m still trying to find any local news article mentioning the ECT. It’s the kind of stuff our media would generally be all over in a minute, and the treatment of this particular detainee in being very publicly dissected, yet ECT isn’t on the long list of grievances being plastered all over the media.
Perhaps the coroner’s inquest will reveal more about this particular assertion.
I’m surprised to read all these extremely negative reports about ECT. We’re not talking frontal lobotomy here. Psychiatrists I’ve heard from say it’s a good tool for intractable depression, with the only side effect being a temporary memory loss.
I have a friend who had ECT. He was actually diagnosed as bipolar but was extremely depressed. Medicine and therapy did not help him. Now he attended college and is leading a very productive life.
So far all I’ve read are anecdotal reports. Does any one have any reports from well conducted studies or other good evidence concerning its efficacy?
You know, people with intractable epilepsy actually have had brain operations. They no longer cut the corpus callosum, I hope, but they still operate on some cases. So here we’re talking about a temporary electrical pulse which, from what I’ve heard, has no permanent effects.
Having said this, it has been my experience that all psychology instructors are not operating from a full deck. I think that’s why they go into psychology: to analyze themselves.
After reading through these articles, it appears that ECT is often used as a last resort to successfully treat some very debilitating psychological illnesses.
Personally, I’ve known several people who underwent ECT. It seemed to really help them for a while, but it wasn’t a cure for their problems.
I heard it on Radio national 2 days ago now. They said that the doctor was pursuing an aggressive therapy to snap him out of the depression. So that was my source, and I generally take the ABC at its word, though it may have been wrong.
And my neighbour was telling me about a woman who drives 4 hours each way every 6 weeks to get ECT because she loves it and it works so much better for her than drugs (she is bipolar) so it can work for some people. The doctors try to talk her out of it but she likes the ECT.
I too am interested in how the other countries represented here deal with their refugees. The only ones I know about are Australia’s and Northern Europe’s (they are running comparisons in the papers).
Interesting. I’m reminded, in a hyperbolic sort of way, of rats with electrodes directly in certain regions of their brains, who will forego food in order to trigger jolts to it. But only in a hyperbole laden way.
I do think ECT is enormously less harmful than past psychiatric practices–lobotomies, earlier lovely practices like sweats and ice baths and insulin shock therapies–but in the future, will be looked back at in much the same light.
As for the morons or liars dichotomy, I don’t think the good ones are liars so much as confabulators. They create a narrative with the patient that, ideally, turns out to be much healthier for said patient than narratives previously rampaging about their brain. “I’m not worthless, I don’t want to die, life is good” is a healthier pattern of thought than its opposite, doesn’t matter who got it into place.
Who’s to say they weren’t basket cases to begin with? Usually for a short period after the procedure…can be a few hours or so… the patient will be confused - this is a normal result of the procedure.
Most poeple whom lose memories regain them in the days months and weeks following the procedure. On occation people have trouble regaining these memories. Hey but did you know that some people’s memories are improved by ECT? because the ECT relieves the amnesia that can sometimes couple with severe depression. Did you know that they have different kinds of ECT which effect the memory on much less incedence as well??
Like death? The chances of dying from the procedure are about 1 out of 50,000 which is not beyone the risk of death for practically any other surgical procedure. If you’re not talking about death, please explain what can go “way wrong.”
I think you’re confusing early ECT with modern ECT. Again I’ll say there has been NO evidence found that ECT can damage the brain (find me some and I’ll buy you a box of cookies). The electricity briefly applied, which contacts the brain (to trigger the artificial seizure), is too weak to damage brain tissue.
Myths abound, and the general public can be ignorant, that’s the reason for this place.
Why is it not smart? unethical? and a bunch of other stuff too?
And what does this have to do with ECT?
“Well granted something like that in the US would never happen as well as many other parts in the world.”
You know, I thought in the U.S. a patient had to sign to have ECT done in ALL states. But apparently the above statement is wrong and this is not the law in a ‘few’ states. So the above statement should’ve read something like:
“Well granted something like that in the US -should- never happen as well as many other parts in the world.”
and for the link…
you refer to data over sixty years old. (!)
“The only real side effect is temporary memory loss in some patients. And in rare instances, slight permanent memory loss.”
Mythical. So why do you pick a link that mostly talks about the history of ECT and not the ‘modern’ reality of it.
“Studies have failed to show any form of brain damage resulting from this procedure.”
I’m under the impression you’re not well informed about ECT from the link you posted. :rolleyes:
Most of the views on ECT are either pro or con. The pro view is scientific-based, while the con view is case-based. It’s kinda like the scientific view against creationism against the passionate religious view for it. Surprises me how many in this thread are in the emotional camp on this topic.
Anyway, as an end note:
Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) may replace ECT in the future. It’s thought that the magnetic field produced from a seizure accounts for the anti-depressant effect of ECT. rTMS is in the early stages now and basically aims to apply these magnetic fields to the brain without the electrically induced seizure.
And don’t put words in my mouth, Silo. Sure, death can result. That isn’t the only way it can go wrong. Other serious injuries can also result.
From my Ab Psych book: “In an ECT procedure, two electrodes are attached to the patient’s head, and an electric current of 65 volts to 140 volts is sent through the brain for half a second or less. After six to twelve treatments, spaced over two to four weeks, …”
Now, this looks to me like electrocuting someone. Several times, in fact. I hope I don’t have to outline for you what can go wrong.
“Patients who receive ECT, particularly bilateral ECT, typically have difficulty remembering the events before and immediately after their treatments. In most cases, this memory loss clears up within a few months (Calev et. al., 1995, 1991; Squire & Slater, 1983). Some patients, however, experience gaps in more distant memory, and this form of amnesia can be permanent (Squire, 1977).”
How about some evidence that ECT doesn’t damage the brain, since you want evidence that it does?
Some of those myths are founded upon fact, Silo. The broken/dislocated bones, the bruises and other “side-effects” of the artificial seizure caused by ECT are very real. Cerletti abandoned the ECT because he abhorred what happened when the ECT was administered.
Because, for one, it is occasionally administered against the will of the patient. Because it is still shock therapy and there are still problems with it.
Someone posted some vague information about frontal lobotomies. In the interest of promoting knowledge (rather than ignorance), I posted more useful information.
The problem with this statement is that you’re indicating (textually) that ECT shouldn’t happen. You need to define “that”. Yes, I know, perhaps a bit Clintonian, but we are in a textual medium.
No, I refer to data about something that happened in 1939.
“The only real side effect is temporary memory loss in some patients. And in rare instances, slight permanent memory loss.”
[/quote]
Mythical.
[/quote]
I say something about ECT and back it up with a link.
You go and say “mythical”.
Please, Silo, educate the Teeming Millions as to how you know this is mythical, yet provide no reason for anyone to believe you other than your word. Which, by the way, you back up with absolutely nothing in this case.
Well, given the outside evidence you’ve presented about ECT, I have nothing to go on other than your evidence, none of which you have bothered to back up with anything! And I hope you can accept the months-old data of my Ab Psych book, which agrees with the information I posted and that site claimed about ECT, that being that it does cause amnesia and that said amnesia can be permanent. Want me to give you the ISBN number of the book I have so you can go and read pages 234 and 235 for yourself?
I find it rather interesting that your cite, Silo, has ONE study that says there’s no change in brain anatomy. Need I remind you that one study does not establish medical certainty?
Given that ECT deals with people and not numbers, shouldn’t any treatment be considered on a case-by-case basis?