Anticonvulsive Therapy Research Paper

Convulsive therapies may be one of the most controversial treatments throughout psychology. It was widely believed that the convulsion caused by the various types of therapy disrupted the problems caused by mental illness and restored proper ways of thinking (Hirshbein & Sarvananda, 2008). Other physicians believed that the shock informs the subconscious that there is a threat to the person’s existence so that self-preservation becomes of central importance and the mental illness is pushed aside so that a normal mental state is recovered (Hirshbein & Sarvananda 2008).

My response this week is to the alternative treatments for depression that do not include medication. After reading the textbook and reviewing the videos, I found that alternative methods used to reduce depression are growing and the benefits of these new therapies could also be increasing the recovery rates of depression throughout the nation.

Epilepsy a neurological disorder marked by sudden recurrent episodes of sensory disturbance, loss of consciousness, or convulsions, associated with abnormal electrical activity in the brain. There is more than 200,000 US cases per year. This Disorder comes with seizures and anxiety. The seizures occur because of a sudden surge of electrical activity in the brain there is an overload of electrical activity in the brain.

Imagine a young woman by the name of Gabrielle Blackman-Sheppard, struggling with depression. Thoughts of suicide and loneliness plague her day in and day out and she cannot seem to overcome that which seems to curse her waking days. In an attempt to be freed of this, she decides to try something known as Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT). Her family is horrified, knowing the dangers that often come with this procedure and warn against it, but she goes through with it anyway. “ ‘The image they all had was of someone being forcibly strapped into an electric chair,’ Gabrielle, who has suffered…for nearly 30 years. ‘'Many people still see it as a form of torture. But I was desperate. I was more terrified of not having it because, at the time, I

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) was introduced in the 1930’s at a time when no effective treatment for the severe mentally ill was known. Convulsive therapy, in the form of chemically induced seizures, was first tested in the 1930’s in patients with dementia praecox, a disorder that is now widely labeled as schizophrenia (Meduna 1935, 1937; Fink 1979).

Seizures happen and are not an unusual occurrence in conjunction with several categories of incapacities and unfluctuating with no incapacities, they still will be able to remain existent.

Dr. Max Fink was first and foremost among clinicians introducing ECT. He watched his first ECT as a medical student in the 1940’s and started giving it regularly during his residency in 1952, ECT’s heyday. Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) has been used for nearly seventy years to treat mental illness. As ECT pioneer Max Fink puts it: except for penicillin for neuro-syphilis and niacin for pellagra, ECT for severe illness is the most effective treatment developed in the twentieth century. So clear are the benefits of ECT for patients who might otherwise commit suicide, or languish for years in the blackness of depression, that there should be little controversy over whether it is safe or effective. The assertion that ECT is associated with memory loss, but in the vast majority of patients, memory is restored within weeks after the last treatment, suggesting that no long-term damage to the brain’s memory capacities is sustained. In addition, it was used for the treatment of the deep sadness of melancholia, the delusion of psychotic depression, the unceasing restlessness of mania, or the hallucination of schizophrenia. ECT proved again and again that it was too valuable to be jettisoned with its sister therapies. It survived because it was needed and it worked.

Epilepsy is the name for several neurological disorders in which people have epileptic seizures. It affects an estimated 65 million people around the world (cureepilepilepsy.org) and varies greatly from case to case. There are several treatment options for patients as well as research for developing better ways to diagnose and treat epilepsy.

To be completely honest, I’ve been putting this essay off because I just didn’t know what to write about. Obviously, I have interests and passions, but which ones mean the most to me? Which ones stand out in my mind? Unusually, my answer came while writing a research paper on electroconvulsive therapy. Sounds odd right? When I was asked to write a simple research paper on electroconvulsive therapy for my English class I thought it would be a piece of cake. The paper was to include information about the history, uses, and how it worked. Yet, instead of following these guidelines I found myself writing more about the mentally ill individuals it was being used on. I was writing more about their struggles and the challenges of being mentally

Electroconvulsive therapy is an extreme treatment for depression. ECT is a highly effective treatment for depression that is helpful for patients with the most severe forms of the illness. A current causes a brief seizure in the brain. ECT is one of the fastest ways to relieve symptoms in severely depressed or suicidal patients. ECT is generally used when severe depression is unresponsive to other forms of therapy.

I came to the field of psychiatry circuitously. Being second birth of premature twins, having had frequent physician visits for infections; I believed physician is a magician who cures us with colored magic pills. As I grew up, I always chose medicine and my twin brother chose computer. It started as a play and then converted to a full-blown passion, as I was naturally inclined to biology more and would study hard and impress him with my knowledge. At an early age, frequent visits of psychiatrists for my grandmother’s dementia and depression made me believe that any amount of human emotional problems can be addressed by physicians.

In the United States 2.5 million people have epilepsy with about 200,000 new cases diagnosed per year. (Huether & McCance, 2012) Epilepsy is seizure activity for which no underlying correctable cause for the seizure can be found; therefore seizure activity recurs without treatment. (Huether & McCance, 2012) When there is a disorderly, sudden, explosive discharge of cerebral neurons, a seizure ensues. A seizure is characterized by sudden, trasient alterations in brain function, usually it involves autonomic, motor, sensory, or psychic clinical manifestations and a temporary altered level of arousal. During a seizure there is a brief disruption in the electrical functions of the brain. Sometimes during one of these episodes there are jerky,

Electroconvulsive therapy, also referred to as ECT, has been used to treat mental illness since the 1930s, making it the oldest physical treatment available. The way ECT is used and administered today is far different than it was 70 years ago. ECT carries a negative stereotype due to movies and media depictions, such as in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which shows the treatment to be a physically and emotionally brutal procedure given to unwilling patients. Today, ECT has shown to be the most acutely effective treatment available for mood disorders and is more successful than antidepressant drugs (Kavanagh & McLoughlin, 2009). Currently, an estimated 100,000 people in the U.S. and about 2 million people worldwide receive ECT treatments each

I am not sure how many years I met with Sue, though my reference to years and not weeks already tells you it went beyond the twelve initial sessions. Therapy is similar to a book without a cover, you need to dive in to understand what you are reading and only afterwards do the contents emerge. After the sessions finished at the post adoption centre, Sue and I agreed to continue therapy but privately in her home based in Hampstead Heath.

Epilepsy is a common medical condition characterized by repeated seizures due to a disorder of the brain cells. the data was limited regarding the prescribing pattern and side effects of various anti epileptic drugs in various population. The aim of present study was to evaluate the effective use of anti epileptic drugs in the management of various types of epileptic seizures over a period of six months.