Posted by LostBoyinNC45 on March 1, 2014, at 0:53:22
In reply to Re: ECT... whats the best/safest form of ECT » bleauberry, posted by Phil on February 26, 2014, at 23:59:25
Ive never had ECT, but Ive had an ECT consultation before. I was also in the very early stage rTMS clinical trials back in the late nineties, when rTMS was being touted as a possible future replacement for ECT.
I will give you my take on ECT, from my limited understanding of it.
First, psychiatry has in the last ten years or so made a major change legally regarding ECT. I observed up until about oh, ten years ago or so, psychiatrists would pretty much refuse to acknowledge memory side effects from ECT. The attitude was "deny, deny, deny." That was my impression of psychiatry and ECT.
Then all of a sudden, psychiatry began publicly acknowledging that in some cases, a minority of cases, there was a chance ECT could cause long term memory problems. And there was a chance ECT could make you confused and stuff. In other words, psychiatry seemed to change its attitude with regards to acknowledging that ECT induced memory/cognition problems is foreseeable.
Foreseeability is a key part of winning a law suit. And by "warning" patients and patients families that it is "foreseeable" that ECT very well may greatly help your severe depression BUT it also might cause some short/long term memory/cognition problems, the shock docs are covering their *ss*s. They can come back if you complain after ECT and they can say, "hey, we told you about it BEFORE you had ECT, yet you continued on and had ECT. YOU are responsible for your own memory loss! Afterall, it was foreseeable and we warned you about it.
Before ten or twelve years ago, my impression was psychiatry absolutely would not acknowledge any foreseeability regarding ECT induced memory/cognition problems. And insisted that any ECT induced memory/cognition problem was a fluke, not foreseeable, unusual, etc. Hence, it was deny from the very beginning.
Ive seen that change over the years and I never even had ECT. To me, that change in admitting foreseeability is significant.
Eric AKA "LostBoyinNC"
poster:LostBoyinNC45
thread:1061377
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20140214/msgs/1061574.html