A Study of ECT and Patient Perceptions
IntroductionA Study of ECT and Patient Perceptions
Introduction
This study resulted from repeated patient complaints that memory deficits and cognitive disturbances following ECT are not being acknowledged by doctors and researchers. The study contains the viewpoints of 41 subjects who have undergone ECT treatments.
Failure to record patient views is a fundamental flaw in all previous research. Patient views are dismissed by many practitioners, who contend the patients themselves do not understand true memory deficits, or by claiming that the memory problems result from underlying depression, and not ECT. From the perspective of many patients, it is those experts who do not fully understand memory and how severely it can be affected by ECT.
This study demands attention by those experts who use ECT in their psychiatric practice. One of the most important findings in this study is that patients who feel they have been damaged by ECT do not return to the doctor who performed ECT and discuss the problem. Instead, feeling that they have suffered side effects that were unanticipated, they simply go on to another doctor, or leave psychiatric treatment altogether. This is not to be seen as an indictment of the patient. It's quite normal that someone who feels s/he has been misled or even lied to would not return to the offending doctor, particularly when the patient feels s/he's been abused.
Thus, when ECT practitioners claim their patients don't complain, they may be telling the truth, based on their lack of follow-up with patients who have left their care. The patients who have had disastrous experiences never return to inform them, and therefore, they never know.
Additionally, when patients do try to discuss these problems with the doctor, their feelings are often dismissed as being mistaken or a misunderstanding.
This study is an attempt to identify areas of concern among ECT patients, and to give previously unheard voices a chance to speak out. It is also intended to make clear that there are effects that the established ECT community does not want to acknowledge.
