What Is Electroshock Therapy And How Does It Work?

This therapy has its origin in aversive techniques of psychiatry (currently called ECT/electroconvulsive therapy ) is used to treat mental pathologies such as depression and schizophrenia.

Where does this therapy come from, a technique that is obviously a bit cumbersome? When medicine began to be done electroconvulsive or electroshock therapy It was at the beginning of the 20th century, and at that time there were no useful medications or drugs, that is, we had the same pathologies or symptoms as now but with a complete absence of effective treatments. By then, in 1924, Von Meduna examined brain tissue in epileptic and schizophrenic patients and observed an antagonism between them. Nyro, in 1929, proposed the treatment of epilepsy using blood from schizophrenics, and Jablousky considered epilepsies associated with schizophrenia to have a better prognosis; Thus Muller in 1930, shared two cases of intervention with favorable results in schizophrenics after induce epileptic seizures. In 1938 Bini and Cerletti began using electroshock or electroconvulsive therapy as intervention for acute psychotic states but which also presented effective results in melancholy.

First, therapies were used insulin shocks. In 1935 M. Sakel used insulin in the withdrawal syndrome of morphinomania and found that excessive doses produced hypoglycemia that caused a favorable psychic and characterological change. Later Sakel began using insulin comas as therapy for schizophrenia. But due to the high mortality rate that occurred, Sakel’s classic technique had modifications, where the most used is the one proposed by Von Meduna, the association of insulin with cardiazol.

Currently, this type of therapy is used as the last intervention option. It is generally used when patients have not observed any type of adequate response to the treatments they have been subjected to. Although electroshock therapy is currently much more harmless, it is used mainly or only with patients who have not manifested any type of favorable response; Electroshock therapy is then a procedure that is carried out under general anesthesia and consists of sending small electrical currents through the brain, thus intentionally causing a brief seizure and achieving neuronal activation. Different authors and researchers propose that electroshock therapy causes changes in brain neurochemistry that can quickly reverse the symptoms of some psychopathologies.

This therapy must be performed in a hospital while the patient is under general anesthesia.

1. The patient is offered a muscle relaxant and a short-acting sedative to prevent pain.
2. The electrodes on the scalp, which will serve to monitor brain activity. Two other electrodes are placed on it that will serve to distribute electric current.
3. When the patient is asleep, they are applied small amounts of electrical current in the head to cause seizure activity in the brain. This process takes approximately 45 seconds. The hands and feet move only slightly during the procedure thanks to medications that prevent seizures from spreading to the entire body.
4. This therapy is administered once every three to five days for six to fifteen sessions.

Electroconvulsive therapy has presented Favorable results in the treatment of depression; as described in the journal Psychiatry (2006), the physiological areas that are evidently altered in depressive disorders (the HPA axis “hypothalamic – pituitary – adrenal axis” and the areas involved with 5HT receptors “serotonin receptors”) They obtain a quick change in favor of their correct functioning.

When using electroconvulsive therapy, a significant increase in gray matter has been detected in certain areas of the brain (hippocampus, amygdala and bilateral parahippocampal cortex) located in the medial temporal lobe. These areas are involved in the appearance of depression symptoms and it has been observed that, when the gray matter increases in these points, improve depressive symptoms.

Currently, electroshock therapy is called electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and is still used as the last resort of intervention for resistant pathologies or that have not presented any favorable change in the health of patients who have received psychotherapeutic or pharmacological treatment. Although its methodology has currently changed, using sedatives and muscle relaxants to avoid pain or bodily damage, it is still considered an aversive therapy.

This article is merely informative, at PsychologyFor we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to What is electroshock therapy and how does it work? we recommend that you enter our Clinical Psychology category.