please, i am asking for answers or good reliable links to answers, ok? im not wanting opinions just now. no offense intended.

someone dear to me is being told to do ECT and i don't know what to say or think... i know someone years ago who had it, but we've lost touch and although he had long term depression and felt it was the right treatment, his depression was not so deep that he couldn't function. He didnt need many. He didnt lose any memory really except for a short time frame around the treatments.

does it work? always or some of the time? ever? can they do it without so much memory loss?

im so worried

[Perna]

Fluff, go back a few pages here in Depression; there's lots of posts on ECT:

http://forums.psychcentral.com/showf...5&o=21&fpart=1

[foreverlost]

My Drs. are suggesting ECT also, so I've looked into it somewhat. It is very effective - 80%, I believe, which is really high for depression. The number of sessions needed varies a lot among individuals and so side effects vary also. From what I gathered, many experience some short-term memory loss, but for most, it is temporary and/or insignificant. There is, however, some small percentage who never totally recover memory. ECT is typically recommended after everything else has been tried. They still do not know WHY it works; they think it resets the brain somehow. It is physically very safe and is not at all like what we see in the movies or hear in horror stories. Be careful because a lot of personal web postings are stories. I encourage you to check out professional sites online. Personally, I am scared to death of the possible memory loss as my occupation heavily relies on cognitive functioning, and mine is already impaired. Hope this was at least of some help. Best of luck and keep posting.

[Christina86]

http://www.bchealthguide.org/kbase/t...541/detail.htm

http://www.psycom.net/depression.central.ect.html

From what I was taught in my psych class, it can be useful for severe depression that is med-resistant. It can have varying degrees of usefulness, but seems to be only good for treatment of depression in a short-term way (meaning you need to have more than one treatment for the most effectiveness). Memory loss can be a consequence of ECT, but some memory recollection can also be recovered over time.