Unilateral Electroconvulsive Therapy: Its Effects on Memory and its Therapeutic Efficacy

Abstract

It is by now widely recognized that patients undergoing a course of electroconvulsive therapy (E.C.T.) may frequently be troubled by some form of memory disturbance. Despite some thirty years of research and speculation on this subject, we are still a long way from understanding the precise nature of these disturbances or their physiological basis. Opinions vary as to their severity and duration and even as to the possible role they may play in the therapeutic process itself. It is, however, generally agreed that a very considerable number of patients complain of memory disturbance during or after a course of E.C.T., and that this may constitute a source of anxiety and distress, if not of practical inconvenience. Treatment is occasionally refused or discontinued on these grounds, and some psychiatrists are reluctant to prescribe E.C.T. in cases where a patient's work might be handicapped by memory impairment. Some degree of disturbance is, however, usually accepted as a calculated risk when prescribing this treatment.