Electroconvulsive Therapy - Effectiveness

Doctor Abraham Zangen explains that electroconvulsive therapy can be an effective treatment for patients who do not respond to antidepressant medication.

Electroconvulsive therapy is a very old method to treat depression. It is very, very effective - most psychiatrists say that this is actually the most effective treatment. For those who do not respond to standard drugs, they have to go through this procedure. It has a very bad image especially because of some movies, famous movies that involve this type of treatment, which looks very cruel. In the past, they did not use anesthesia in this type of therapy, no muscle relaxants, and there were many traumas associated with it, but today it is done under anesthesia and we use muscle relaxants and the effect is very strong. The only problem is the cognitive impairment that can be induced by repeated electroconvulsive therapy and some memory loss, and that is why still it is not very widely used and only in cases of patients who do not respond to standard antidepressants.