Electroconvulsive Research Paper

Reported for the first time in the 18th century, was the use of convulsive therapy.

Seizure disorders, according to the Mayo Clinic (2015), affect approximately 1 in 26 people in the United States. Persistent, or chronic, seizures result from a condition called epilepsy, a neurological disorder of the central nervous system. It can affect anyone regardless of age, but is more common during early childhood and after age 60. Given the number of people that seizure disorders, such as epilepsy, affect, it becomes helpful to gain a foundational understanding of the disease, including some of the causes, symptoms, and treatments available.

Electroconvulsive therapy, also known as ECT, is a medical procedure that is used in the treatment of mental illness. In ECT, a small electrical impulse is sent through the brain, resulting in an ephemeral seizure. Though the process is generally effective, modern science is unaware of the explanation behind ECT's success. Its history is filled with a large amount of stigma and the use of ECT as a therapy is still debated today. ECT has evolved to a point where its beneficial effects can be maximized and its adverse effects can be minimized through proper administration.

Seizures that are not caused by epilepsy are called non-epileptic seizures. Epileptic seizures are caused by abnormal electrical activity in the brain. Non-epileptic seizures may be caused by:

After researching electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), I have decided that if a close family member or even myself were severely depressed I would not support the use of ECT. Electroconvulsive therapy consists of an electrical shock, which is used to produce a seizure. Many people experience seizures due to some other type of illness or illnesses, and in these cases there is medicine taken in order to prevent these occurrences. In deciding my opinion on the topic of ECT I asked myself would I want to put myself or a loved one through what others are trying to avoid; a seizure. Although ECT has proven to be effective in some cases of depression, it has many risk factors involved and it does not ensure a lifetime with out the reoccurrence of

Epilepsy Research Paper People most often associate violent twitching, falling to the floor and drooling with epilepsy. However the described event is only one kind of an epileptic seizure, which is called a tonic-clonic seizure. There are many other kinds of seizures, and each has different sets of signs and symptoms. During generalized seizures the whole brain is affected and the initial symptom is loss of consciousness. This category includes such seizures as absence seizure, myoclonic seizure, and atonic attack.

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) was first developed in 1938. It has a history of abuse, exploited as a means of punishing or controlling people in mental hospitals, consequently ECT had poor reputation with negative depictions, but since then it has drastically improved with confirmed effectiveness. Despite the improvement in techniques, the use of ECT continues to decline since the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE,2003) states that it should only be administered to severely depressed patients for whom psychotherapy and medication have proved ineffective or when the condition is considered potentially life threatening. For example, when there is a risk of suicide or risk to others because ECT has much quicker results than

Growing up in the late 50's and early 60's the term for mental illness was they are "nuts" or "crazy." Watching black and white TV depicted a crazy person in a straight jacket, in a locked white padded room, screaming. As a child seeing this would impart a stigma of fear and threat to self. So, how does a senior feel about mental illness if raised in this era without being educated and living in a rural area? Luckily my mother explained at a young age that these individuals are ok and just have a medical condition and to treat them like anyone else.

The precursors for this therapy type were introduced long before electroconvulsive therapy even entered into the picture. In the early 16th century using medical drugs to induce seizures was thought to be appropriate to treat therapeutic conditions. This was followed with an article in the London Medical Journal in 1785 stating that inducing seizures could be used for therapeutic use. Convulsive therapy would then reappear in 1934 when a neurologist by the name of the Ladislas J. Meduna first began to induce seizures in patients first by using the drug camphor and the following up with the drug metrazol. In 1937 the first international meeting on convulsive therapy was held in Switzerland and 3 years after that cardiazal convulsive therapy would be used worldwide. In 1937 an Italian professor of neuropsychiatry be the name of Ugo Cerletti with his colleague Lucio Bini would be the first people to replace metrazol with electricity in the convulsive therapy. The reasons that he choose to replace metrazol with electricity in the therapy was based on previous experiments he had conducted on inducing seizures in animals using electroshock. Previous experiments that he had done with animals included noticing that in dogs giving them an electric shock to the head would result in convulsions. Another

The practice of electroconvulsive therapy has been a subject around which controversy thrives for decades since its original institution. Public fears stem from all kinds of sources whether they be rational and claim base in science, based on the social context surrounding administration of the treatment, or simply based on the fact that inducing convolutions through electric shocks to the head seems like a peculiar and disturbing manner in which to treat an illness. Some ethical resistance to the treatment may have been born in the 60s when it received attention in various forms of popular media. Ken Kesey’s book and eventual movie, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, depicts ECT as an oppressive tool of the system, used to stifle and

Partial seizures are seizures that are produced by small impulses on a certain area of the brain. The partial seizures are dived into many other categories that are simple, complex, and partial seizure with secondary generalization. In simple seizures it includes: simple motor, simple sensory, and simple psychological. For motor the symptoms are muscle stiffening and making movements like jerking. In sensory the symptoms involve the five senses that each every one of us have which are smell, hear, taste, touch, and vision. Psychological symptoms involve with the memory. Complex partial seizures is when the patient seems to be out of it or just in space. The symptoms that they may get are movements that are coordinated and could be at times

Epilepsy can happen to anyone of any age. The largest(47%) percent of people, developing epilepsy for the first time, being children from birth to nine years of age. The next largest age group would be ten year olds to ninteen year olds at 30%. The least amount of first time seizures comes from the forty plus age group. (According to EFA publications) Over 2.5 million people suffer from epilepsy. The international league against epilepsy describes a seizure as an alternative term for "epileptic attack". Seizures vary in there length and severity. A "tonic-clonic" seizure can last for one to seven minutes. " Absence seizures usually last for a few seconds. However, complex partial seizure" may last for thirty seconds or two

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.

Epilepsy is an extremely serious disease that should never be taken lightly. If the disease of epilepsy could be described two words, those two words would be: violent convulsions. Medical marijuana has been proven to help treat two specific types of seizures, and both types are to be taken very seriously. Grand mal epilepsy and complex partial seizure disorder are the two that are greatly effected by medical marijuana (Gieringer 54). This situation can become personal for anyone at anytime, so it is most important to make the situation direct to make each individual feel what the families and patients who are suffering from these diseases are feeling. Paige Figi teamed up with Dr. Edward Maa to make a case for what catastrophic event happened

For the purpose of this assignment the experience of attending Electro-Convulsive Therapy will be discussed. It will include rationale for the procedure, an account of the procedure and the student nurses reflection on the experience using Gibbs’ model of reflection (Jasper 2003). Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a medical treatment for severe mental illness in which a small, carefully controlled amount of electricity is introduced into the brain. This electrical stimulation, used in conjunction with anaesthesia and muscle relaxant medications, produces a mild generalised seizure or convulsion (Mankad et al 2010).