A Video Overview of Electroconvulsve Therapy

this looks like criticism rather than information. 90 percent of methods used to control depression are failures. This includes modern medicine. Why single out ECT?

ECT destroyed my life. it runed me. i cant remember my whole life and cant do anything anymore

ECT IS effective in cases of major depression that are not responsive to any of the first line therapies...and it can be a better choice for depression cases in pregnancy...lay people have this myth that ECT is torture...but you are a neurologist and post this 70s video full of myths...that will mislead people to believe that ECT is a torture...SIGH
ECT works as a re-start to the brain...like a heart in fibrillation...you shock to restart the pace, in a new rythm...same principle for ECT.

I guess I agree that it obviously isnt torture...but it DOES cause brain damage..but I am also guessing that brilliant ejumakated docs know a little more than the avg joe on this..and its not like its a common type of medicine.

Interesting that you say it works to restart the brain. I have used OTC cranial electro stimulators that have taken me out of depressions..i'm guessing theyre ultra light weight compared to ect, but same concept? then again, i'm not a doc..so who knows.....

I had ECT a few months ago. I was in a very black depression off and on for a few years. Antidepressants did nothing for me. I remember nothing about my past since around the year 2000. Recent memory built since I completed the treatment sometimes fades. After many tests it's been "decided" that I have permanent brain damage effecting my memory. HOWEVER...I'd do it again without a question. Friends tell me how I was. I seemed to be "cured". I feel concerned about the future, but happy.

Antidepressants - 18 different ones singly as well as with adjuncts - $10,0000/year- were 100% useless to me. ECT WORKED!! No one knows how ECT works, but no one knows how any antidepressants work either. It's too damn easy to oppose ECT if you're one of the lucky ones for whom antidepressants actually work.

Early use of shock therapy was indeed primitive. However, so was conventional medicine! Our knowledge of psychiatric medicine has lagged behind physical medicine, mostly because the brain is so complex. ECT has improved the lives of people who are otherwise untreatable. However, the technique remains controversial. I feel it should never be used against a patient's will, but it should be available for seriously ill people who consent.

you can see around 3:20 that it's 2000 or later

All that seems a bit on the deep end. How do you know they are all sick sadists? That seems like a leap of faith to say without some kind of proof.

Modern ECT uses short pulses with anesthesia vs the older sine wave currents that had worse side effects.

Isn't necesarilly to be a sadist to we say it's s darned shit. 1% or less of a sadic is enough to be a shite doctor. Eletroconvulsion is still bad itself and even bad prescribed.