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By Mayo Clinic staffElectroconvulsive therapy (ECT) can provide rapid, significant improvements in severe symptoms of a number of mental health conditions. It may be an effective treatment in someone who is suicidal, for instance, or end an episode of severe mania. ECT is used to treat:
- Severe depression, particularly when accompanied by detachment from reality (psychosis), a desire to commit suicide or refusal to eat.
- Treatment-resistant depression, long-term depression that doesn't improve with medications or other treatments.
- Schizophrenia, particularly when accompanied by psychosis, a desire to commit suicide or hurt someone else, or refusal to eat.
- Severe mania, a state of intense euphoria, agitation or hyperactivity that occurs as part of bipolar disorder. Other signs of mania include impaired decision making, impulsive or risky behavior, substance abuse and psychosis.
- Catatonia, characterized by lack of movement, fast or strange movements, lack of speech, and other symptoms. It's associated with schizophrenia and some other psychiatric disorders. In some cases, catatonia is caused by a medical illness.
Electroconvulsive therapy is sometimes used as a last-resort treatment for:
- Treatment-resistant obsessive compulsive disorder, severe obsessive compulsive disorder that doesn't improve with medications or other treatments
- Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, and certain other conditions that cause movement problems or seizures
- Tourette syndrome that doesn't improve with medications or other treatments
ECT may be a good treatment option when medications aren't tolerated or other forms of therapy haven't worked. In some cases ECT is used:
- During pregnancy, when medications can't be taken because they might harm the developing fetus
- In older adults who can't tolerate drug side effects
- In people who prefer ECT treatments over taking medications
- When ECT has been successful in the past
- Baghai TC, et al. Electroconvulsive therapy and its different indications. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience. 2008;10:105.
- George MS, et al. Nompharmacological somatic treatments. In: Hales RE, et al. The American Psychiatric Publishing Textbook of Psychiatry. 5th ed. Arlington, Va.: American Psychiatric Publishing; 2008. http://www.psychiatryonline.com/content.aspx?aID=338950. Accessed May 25, 2010.
- Payne N, et al. Electroconvulsive therapy: Part I. A perspective on the evolution and current practice of ECT. Journal of Psychiatric Practice. 2009;15:346.
- Fact sheet: Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Mental Health America. http://www.nmha.org/go/information/get-info/treatment/electroconvulsive-therapy-ect. Accessed May 26, 2010.
- Depression: Electroconvulsive therapy. American Academy of Family Physicians. http://familydoctor.org/online/famdocen/home/common/mentalhealth/treatment/058.html. Accessed May 26, 2010.
- Doughrerty DD, et al. Somatic therapies for treatment-resistant depression: New neurotherapeutic interventions. Psychiatric Clinics of North America. 2007;30:31.
- Lisanby SH. Electroconvulsive therapy for depression. New England Journal of Medicine. 2007;298:330.
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