Human Rights Expert: Is ECT making mental healthcare better or worse?

by | Nov 2, 2022

Here's Why Tracking Of Electroconvulsive Therapy Should Be Mandatory Across the Nation Is ECT making mental healthcare better or worse?

What Is ECT?

Electroconvulsive therapy sends electricity through the brain. The voltage can be as high as 460, and the current causes a surge of electrical activity, resulting in a seizure.

ECT got its start in 1934 when psychiatrist Ladislas Meduna, having recognized that epilepsy patients seemed to improve after seizures, began using the stimulant Metrazol to induce seizures in psychotic patients. The violent seizures and terror induced by the drug were excruciating. In search of an alternative method, neurologist Ugo Cerletti and his colleague, Lucio Bini, developed the first ECT device in 1938 after observing how electric shock was used in slaughterhouses before killing pigs.

Those recommended as candidates for ECT include not only individuals with severe depression who haven’t responded to other treatments but also individuals with disorders such as schizophrenia. However, the recent revelation that the chemical imbalance theory could be false and that low serotonin levels are not necessarily the cause of depression brings the entire concept of treatment-resistant depression into question.

Defenders assert that advances in ECT techniques, such as individualized dosing and the use of muscle relaxants, make ECT safer and more capable of better results than in the past.

However, mental health human rights advocates point to the lack of any clinical trials involving people, which is normally required by the FDA when determining the safety of a device; this fact, combined with the potential for harm, makes it a controversial mental health treatment option.

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3 Comments

  1. brandon o benton

    i have people following with these same machines trying to zap me im a disabled veteran located in san antonio texas my address is 4822 gus eckert rd apartment 1216 silver creek apartments. i live alone im a disabled combat veteran im 37 years old my dob is 08/04/1986. i just recently visited san antonio behavioral health where i found about this treatment. please reach out the community and help me my phone is tapped and i live off of $2000 a month they have already talked about trying to zapp me please help me my contact info is 562 350 1016

    Reply
  2. Ann Fuller

    It’s definitely made people worse. So they take someone whos disabled, vulnerable, old, uncompliant, confused, poor, helpless etc..and make them more disabled. Then they take all their money and any and all assets , mess um up so bad that they don’t remember alot . so they then have to depend on the state etc..to care for them. For the government’s benefit at these helpless people’s expense.
    Anyone who orders Shock treatment ( Its NOT TREATMENT) should also get the shock or ECT . We can’t shock our dog ( i wouldn’t) yet we can shock people????
    GOD doesn’t want anyone to change their body especially their brain ( in a negative way).
    STOP THE SHOCK!!!!

    Reply
  3. Ann Fuller

    No SHOCK THERAPY IS NO THERAPY. IT SHOULD BE BANNED!!!!!! YOULL NEED THERAPY AFTER GETTING ZAPPED.

    Reply

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