Electro Shock - ECT
The following links are a collection of information about Electro Shock, or ECT - most of it from New Zealand sources.
Select Committee Report on ECT
NZ Ministry of Health Annual ECT Statistics 01.07.03 to 30.06.05
Harold Sackheim admits ECT causes permanent amnesia and cognitive deficits
Dr Peter Breggin - Disturbing News for Patients and Shock Doctors
Patients face brain damage with ECT rules
Psychiatrist tries to silence forced electroshock survivor
BSA's Ruling on the TV3 News interview with a forced electroshock survivor
Review of Efficacy, Safety and Regulatory Controls of ECT in NZ
Change to the Guideline to the Mental Health Act 1992 regarding ECT
Commissioners seek ban on ECT for children
ECT machines
A Health and Disability Commission report on the provision of ECT by Dr C and Ms D at a public hospital
ECT attitudes and practice in New Zealand - The Royal College of Psychiatrists
Guidelines on Ect Administration - Victorian Government Health Information
The Mental Health Commission on ECT - 2005
An ECT machine supplier
ECT: Making an informed choice - NAMI
Rotorua Electric Shock Capital
News Article Clinicians want shock treatment restrictions.
ECT survivor Margaret Parry speaks out about ECT
Towards Social Justice: creating mental disabilities through forcefully drugging and shocking women by Anna de Jonge
A Letter to the Editor of the Waikato Times written by Anna de Jonge and published on 26 May 2006
An open letter from Astrid, a member of Patient Rights advocacy.
Ten quotes against ECT, collected by PRAWI member, Anna M.P. Natusch.
Section 9 of the Ministry of Health Review of ECT in NZ which looks at the use of ECT on the elderly, adolescents and children, pregnant women, disabled people, and takes into account cultural considerations.
The Summary of Findings and Discussion sections of the Ministry of Health Audit Report on ECT
Dr John Read PhD, on the ECT Review and Dr John Read Response to the Draft Report regarding ECT.
Green party MP Sue Kedgeley on the ECT Audit.
News article on the Mental Health Commission point of view on the Ministry of Health report on ECT
A comprehensive collection of information about ECT, both for and against.
Electro shock as head injury.
From 'The Listener' archive, June 14-20 2003, Vol189 No 3292
The Waikato DHB policy on ECT.
News article on the pros and cons of ECT.
Wikipedia defines ECT.
An article on ECT by Psychiatrist/Psychologist Dr Peter Breggin
Understanding and Ending ECT - A feminist Imperative by Bonnie Burstow
The Ministry of Health current view of ECT in NZ.
Dr Felicity Plunkett AKA Fizz promoting ECT provided in Auckland NZ.
What is ECT?
Electro shock is the "medical treatment" of sending a charge of electricity through a person's brain in order to induce a seizure or convulsion. These days it is usually called ECT, meaning Electro Convulsive Therapy. More accurately and less offensively to many survivors, ECT stands for Electro Convulsive Torture or Electro Convulsive Trama.
How is it applied?
Initially the prospective patient is educated on the benefits of ECT and then invited to sign a contract in order to give their "informed consent" to receive electro shock. To get a flavour of the promotional information supplied to patients about ECT, read the advertisements for ECT supplied on the internet by Dr Felicity Plunkett. If the patient does not sign the paper, there is a hearing which the patient may or may not attend. Two psychiatrists will inform a judge of their opinion that the patient should have ECT. If the judge agrees with them, the patient will be forced to have electo shock against their will, courtesy of the Mental Health Act of 1990.
The procedure is administered by a psychiatrist, an anaesthetist, an ECT nurse and a recovery nurse in an operating theatre setting with emergency equipment at hand in case of heart-failure or a stroke. Short-acting muscle relaxing and anaesthetic drugs are administered to stop the patient thrashing around during convulsion and breaking bones or sustaining other injuries that were a common result of ECT in earlier days. The convulsion will be visible only as a tremor in her upper and lower limbs, or maybe even just the fingers and toes, thanks to the drugs which act as a chemical seat-belt. However the use of these drugs necessitates a higher level of electricity to be used in order to ensure that the patient will have a seizure.
The level of electricity to be used on the patient's brain will vary depending on factors like her age. A human skull has a high resistance to electricity, and elderly brains are particularly resistant and will need a higher charge. The electricity levels will be applied and monitored by the psychiatrist by use of an ECT machine which looks like a small square box.
The anaesthetised patient will receive bagged ventilation from the anaesthetist. As a precaution a disposable mouth guard will have been inserted in her mouth, or else her false teeth will have been removed if she wears them. Two electrodes will be placed on the patient's skull, either on both sides of the head, or else both on one side, usually the right. Electricity will be applied and she will convulse for at least 25 seconds, although she will be totally unaware of it under anaesthesia.
The next thing she will know, she'll be in the recovery room, waking up and feeling disorientated. She may have a headache, and will have some gaps in her memory. It it is not all over yet. Most people receive a course of 2-3 treatments a week over 2-4 weeks.
Who receives ECT?
These days electroshock is almost given to people who have a diagnosis of mental illness. Most often it is used on people who have a severe depression, but it is also used on people with other psychiatric diagnoses.
The Ministry of Health's annual statistics from the year 2003/2004 show that in that year 414 people received a course of ECT. These 414 people received 3170 doses of ECT.
There are huge variations in practice throughout the country. Three times the national average of ECT treatments are performed in Otago.
International guidelines recommend a cause of 6-10 shocks per person and the national average in New Zealand is 10.4 shocks per person. The Waitemata DHB administers an average of 18 shocks per person.
Throughout New Zealand 22% of ECTs are performed on people without their consent. The Waitemata DHB performs 40% of shocks without consent, and Counties Manakau performs 58% of shocks without consent.
Women are twice as likely as men to receive electro shock. Roughly 2 thirds of ECT recipients will be 50 or older and 1 third will be 70 years of age or older.
A recent audit performed by the Ministry of Health finds it acceptable for ECT to be performed on the elderly, on young people and even on pregnant women.
What are the effects of ECT?
The intended results are a quick improvement in mood and function. This will often occur, for example a severely depressed person may start to eat and drink again. However this is temporary because nothing is resolved by ECT. ECT can induce a short-term improvement, but it does not cure. Studies have shown that there are no beneficial results of ECT when more than four weeks have passed since having it. Unfortunately there can be longer lasting detrimental effects. It is acknowledged fact of medical knowledge that the more courses of ECT you have, and the higher the voltage used, the more permanent the damage.
Most doctors will concede that Electro shock will cause memory loss, although psychiatrists will often use words around long-term memory loss like 'minimal', and 'subjective', as if the loss of memory is in the imagination of their patient.
Exactly which memories will be lost and how much memory will be affected cannot be predicted. There is likely to be permanent memory lost concerning events around the time of their ECT. Memory will improve over time, with the oldest memories returning first. Some memories will never return, and the impact of this will depend on what those memories were. The ability to make new memories can also be affected, making it very difficult for a person to function normally. One ECT survivor who was treated in 2003 carries a notebook with her and writes down the events of the day as they happen, helping her to make sense of the day, and follow up on things appropriately. Unfortunately doctors will often not connect this kind of brain damage with the ECT, preferring to blame the person's original illness.
For more reading on ECT read chapter 8 of "Models of Madness", edited by John Read, Loren R. Mosher and Richard P. Bentall. There is also information about ECT in the books "Toxic Psychiatry" and "Brain-disabling Treatments in Psychiatry", both written by Peter R. Breggin, M.D. (see the recommended books page).
THE ELECTROSHOCK QUOTATIONARY: NEW, FREE, WEB- ACCESSIBLE BOOK EXPOSES TRAGIC REALITY OF ELECTROSHOCK. To download the book, go to http://www.endofshock.com/102C_ECT.PDF
Electroshock? They still do that? You bet they do, to more than 100,000 Americans every year! Since 1938, psychiatrists have subjected millions of people throughout the world to electroshock (shock therapy, electroconvulsive treatment, ECT), but the public knows little about this harmful practice.
The Electroshock Quotationary by shock survivor and editor Leonard Roy Fran is an illustrated, 154-page collection of chronologically arranged quotations, excerpts, and essays about the history and nature of electroshock: who gets it and why, how it's administered, what the experience is like, what its effects are, and how the struggle surrounding its use is being played out within and beyond the psychiatric profession. More than 400 entries dating from 47 A.D. to the present are included in this highly readable and carefully researched expose of one of medicine's most controversial procedures.
"ECT is one of God's gifts to mankind. There is nothing like it, nothing equal to it in efficacy or safety in all of psychiatry." Max Fink, electroshock psychiatrist,1996.
"The magnitude of the [electroshock] atrocity is too great to communicate. That's why it's the perfect crime." Rich Winkel, electroshock survivor, 2005
Electroshock is a psychiatric procedure that induces a grand mal seizure, or convulsion, by passing electricity through the brain. Two- thirds of those who undergo ECT are women, half are elderly, and payment is usually covered by insurance. Electroshock is a multi- billion-dollar-a-year industry. Opponents charge that electroshock causes permanent brain damage, memory loss, learning disability, and a significant number of deaths; is often used as an instrument of social control; and is sometimes administered by means of coercion or outright force and seldom with genuine informed consent.
Frank edited the best-selling Random House Webster's Quotationary in 1998 and The History of Shock Treatment in 1978. Active in the psychiatric survivors movement since 1972, he is a member of MindFreedom International, a coalition of more than 100 grassroots groups working for human rights in psychiatry, and also The Coalition for the Abolition of Electroshock in Texas, from whose website The Electroshock Quotationary may be downloaded free of charge at http://www.endofshock.com/102C_ECT.PDF