Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)

allit

I’ve recently discovered that some patients with dementia may be treated with ECT in the hopes that it will improve symptoms of depression.
Does anyone have experience with this that you can share?

Here’s just one article I found about it

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10960885/

M1

This was a chart review, not a controlled study. It remains a treatment of last resort i think and I suspect you'd be hard pressed to convince anyone to try it. One of its side effects is memory loss and confusion.

mpang123

I had about 6 times of ECT for depression. All it did was lose my memory 3 days before ECT to 3 days after. I wake up confused and disoriented. I was still depressed after that. I was volunteering to get the ECT and was able to stop it by my own decision.

allit

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/218200#Comment_218200

thank you for sharing

Quilting brings calm

Electroconvulsive… so basically sending electrical charge into a brain to cause a seizure? Having had a son with epilepsy, I don’t see anything good about that sort of treatment. Our son would return to consciousness after a seizure confused, nauseous, with a severe headache and loss of memory. His suspected cause of death is from a seizure(Although that’s not what is on his death certificate). How could any of that possibly help someone with dementia? In fact, a possible side effect of uncontrolled seizures is cognitive decline.

That makes no more sense to me than the recently approved medications to treat dementia that have side effects of brain swelling and brain bleeds. Both of which are known causes of cognitive issues.

SusanB-dil

Also agree that I don't see any reason to do this.

@mpang123 Thank you for being so candid, and with such an honest perspective on this.

sandwichone123

ECT can be very effective for some people, even when multiple medications have failed. I can understand, certainly, finding the idea unattractive, but I've seen people come out of ECT like someone turned on the light after months or years of darkness. Even with dementia, it makes sense to do what we can to improve quality of life.