According to psychiatrists, approximately 100,000 Americans have received electroconvulsive therapy (Sadowsky). The concept of the therapy is precisely “shocking the delicate electrical systems of the brain to produce seizures” that could cause painful muscle spasms and memory loss afterward. However, anesthesia now makes the procedure itself less painful for patients (Szalavitz). Electroconvulsive therapy is a beneficial treatment for treating people with mental illness. It’s a good treatment option when medications or other forms of therapy aren’t working and is a great efficacy in treating treatment-resistant bipolar patients. Originally, the idea of electroconvulsive therapy was proposed by Italian researchers. According to Sadowsky, psychiatrists discovered that inducing seizures could relieve symptoms of mental illness so researchers thought electroconvulsive therapy, also known as ECT, was a safer and less terrifying method of doing so. In 1938, neurologist Ugo Cerletti used electricity as a substitute for inducing a therapeutic seizure in treating a delusional and incoherent patient and obtain a significant medical improvement in Italy. Between the 1940s and 1950s, ECT was the strength of biological treatment in psychiatry. It was usually …show more content…
Researchers in Scotland scanned nine people’s brains with profound depression before and after ECT using fMRI, or functional magnetic resonance imaging. All patients “failed to respond to antidepressants or other therapies and none had had ECT in the previous six months.” Scientists then found out that patients showed “significant decreases in connectivity between certain parts of the brain” when they were given ECT twice a week until the symptoms were lifted (Szalavitz). But not only does ECT help with severe depression, it also helps with