Electroshock therapy or Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) is a psychiatric treatment in which seizures are electrically induced in patients to provide relief from psychiatric illnesses. In 2011, it was estimated that about 100,000 people in the United States receive ECT treatment each year.
Over the years, ECT has generated a lot of controversy in the United States, especially regarding the device used in conducting the therapy. Critics have questioned the safety of the electric device used in the process.
To make matters worse, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has downgraded ECT devices from Class III to Class II. This means that their uses are now much less regulated. Critics of ECT have blamed the passing of the 21st Century Cures Act (H.R. 6) which “relaxes scientific standards, virtually guaranteeing insufficiently tested drugs will hit the market only to be recalled after the damage is done.”
In all these criticisms against ECT, Your Wire News reports that the FDA is busily making plans to introduce ETC as a viable psychiatric treatment, making it easier for doctors to prescribe its use on patients suffering from conditions such as depression and anxiety. This will include teenagers.
According to anonymous source within the FDA, officials of the organization are proposing to change the classification of ECT devices for use in treating severe major depressive episode (MDE) associated with major depressive disorder (MDD), or bipolar disorder (BPD), in patients 18 years of age and older, who are treatment-resistant or who require a rapid response, due to the severity of their psychiatric or medical condition.
Meanwhile, authorities in the United States are currently pushing for a mandatory mental health screening for all American teenagers. Many observers therefore suspect that teenagers in America will be subjected to a routine ECT in the near future. The plans of subjecting teenagers to ECT are believed to have been considered in late 2015.
In January 2016, a critic of ECT, CCHRI said in an article that the proposed rule change by the FDA, means officials are sought to make the change “despite the federal agency’s admission that the ECT device has not been proven safe and effective.”
According to the FDA, about 5 million Americans have been treated with ECT devices. But critics have said despite the number of people who have gone through the ECT process, none of the ECT device manufacturers have ever submitted clinical trial evidence of their effectiveness, supporting their position that their devices are safety for the public.
Even the FDA itself, has listed 14 health risks that are associated with ECT devices. The more serious complications and side effects include:
- Death, which could occur due to reactions to anesthesia; cardiovascular complications, pulmonary complications, or stroke;
- Cardiovascular complications from convulsion-induced arrhythmias (irregular, and sometimes dangerous, heartbeat patterns), or from a heart attack or hypertension;
- Memory and cognition can be impaired or destroyed, specifically immediate post-treatment disorientation, anterograde memory impairment and retrograde personal (autobiographical) memory impairment;
- Device malfunctions;
- Physical trauma;
- A worsening of psychiatric conditions.
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Lets not beat around the bush here. Difficult children? lobotomy of course. Political deviance? summary execution naturally. Trump’s just the man we need to push things through.
Yeah, the same person who wants to appoint a shock jock as NIH head who claims autism doesn’t exist and everyone is just acting.
Please stop the planet, I’d like to get off.
This is just bullshit. This is not “One Flew Over The Cucoo’s Nest”. I absolutely disagree with a Dr. prescribing this to random teenagers or “trouble makers”. However, I am an adult and ECT saved my life. My husband and I did vast research first but as I am medication resistant and have MDD it became a real solution. IT SAVED AND CHANGED MY LIFE. It has not completely healed me, but it has allowed me to live and take care of my child and myself. I do have memory loss that is frustrating but it’s better than eating imaginary food, which is what I was doing when I was on all of the meds. I do still take a couple of medications but I am present now. I have had many family members and close friends present to watch my treatments. Some out of pure curiosity and some for educational purposes. My clinic is completely transparent and run out of a major university by very well respected doctors and psychiatrists. Please do real research on this issue. Talk to someone who is living (barely) with major depression.
There are good reasons that can be found for any number of questionable practices, but in this matter as with many others, outright abuse can be absolutely guaranteed. In my opinion, at our present moment in history, protection of the individual is more pressing than granting ever increasing licence to the reigning ‘Authorities’
I am a complete fan of Anonymous so it comes with GREAT DISAPPOINTMENT that I have to read this biased, one-sided article. Listen to Sheri Knott, speak to someone who has spent 20 years suffering from depression, unable to leave their house, and trying to KILL THEMSELVES every third day.
I am treatment resistant, I tried every depression medication available and appropriate diet and exercise to boot. I was a waste of air the way I was living. It didn’t just affect me, it harmed my children, my husband, my family and friends, AND I LOST MY JOB. I wasn’t living.
One day my “new” psychiatrist (after 3 years of treatment and a year of group therapy)suggested I try ECT. I immediately thought One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I was terrified! BUT, I went to the hospital, I met the extremely well educated doctor and was walked through the entire process. I have news for you, the pictures you show are not accurate and do NOT show the equipment used today, rather your images are there simply to feed on people’s fears and are really quite disappointing of an Anonymous post.
It was only AFTER I had witnessed the process that I was willing to say, OK, I WANT to try this. I want a chance to get better. Guess what? I AM better. I am alive again for the first time in 20 years. I take NO medication now and I am more active and happy than I have been since I was 19 years old. (FYI…I’m 38) I have a better relationship with everyone in my life and I’ve begun enjoying company. My daughter and I are closer than ever and I would not trade it for ANYTHING.
I wish this treatment had been offered to me sooner, in fact I wish it had been an option when I first realized meds were going to get me nowhere. I’m so grateful to have my life back and I still go for ECT once a month.
Did it effect my memory? Yes, when I first started and was going more often, but now there are no side-effects other than I headache for a couple hours when I wake up. I FEEL NO PAIN THROUGH THE PROCESS. It’s a small price to pay to be given back my life.
I’m disappointed in Anonymous for allowing such an incomplete, biased, non-factual story to be posted here. You can do better!
I’m 38 now. I had ECT when I was 21. I had significant long term episodic memory loss that I have never been able to recover. I still struggle with short term episodic memory loss. I was not fully made aware of the potential dangers of this procedure. I was told I would have some memory loss surrounding the days I had the procedure, but it would go away once treatment was over…it never did. I was in a psychiatric facility and, in hindsight, I think I was too mentally ill at the time to make that kind of decision for myself.
I think it’s a horrible idea to perform ECT on teenagers whose brains are still developing. Yes, the treatment did work, but I paid a high price for it. The effect only lasted 2 years for me. I struggle everyday with bipolar disorder, but ECT is not an option I would ever consider again.
**This is just my opinion based on my own experience. I’ve heard many people have excellent long term results w/out side effects.**
If people are fully informed and choose, in a desperate attempt to improve their lives, to resort to a procedure of what amounts to a bloodlessly inflicted injury to their own brains, this treatment is already accessible to them. If on the other hand ECT is being proposed as a more acceptable and routinely enforced cure for children,,,, or criminals perhaps, the subsequent abuse of this new norm is, as I stated before, absolutely inevitable.