Long-term effects of electroconvulsive therapy upon memory and perceptual-motor performance

✍ Scribed by Herbert Goldman; Frank E. Gomer; Donald I. Templer

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1972
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 240 KB
• Volume: 28
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-9762
• DOI: 10.1002/1097-4679(197201)28:1<32::aid-jclp2270280111>3.0.co;2-e

✦ Synopsis

This study investigated whether there are memory and perceptual-motor deficits in patients who have had in excess of 50 electroconvulsive treatments (ECT). A number of investigators have explored the effects of E C T upon psychological tests sensitive to. organicity. These researchers usually found decreased performance during and shortly after a course of ECT(*. 3 , 6 , 7 , l o -1 3 ) . There appear to be only two investigations that determined the cognitive effects of ECT after a number of months(6' g ) , However, in both of these studies neither control patients nor an adequate number of E C T patients were employed. In the report of Pascal and Zeaman ( 6 ) , a patient's Wechsler-Bellevue and Rorschach scores before 10 E C T and 7 months afterward were comparable. Stone(9) reported that a patient's Henmon-Nelson Test of Mental Ability score 60 days after the last of 20 ECT was comparable to her score of 7 years earlier.

An appropriate generalization is that the evidence as to whether ECT causes permanent cognitive impairment is inconclusive. The studies reported in the literature have not been controlled adequately for the assessment of such impairment. Furthermore, the number of ECT have been far fewer than in the present research.