Rethinking Shock Therapy
Remember Mom’s friend who tried to commit suicide and had to be hopsitalized? She’s going to be receiving shock treatment now. This is nothing new to her — she also had shock treatment 27 years ago. Although Mom’s friend is convinced that nothing will ever help her, the odds are that she is wrong and shock therapy may be exactly what she needs. Over 100,00 people get shock treatment every year, according to MSNBC quoting from the National Mental Health Association.
What It’s Not
Whenever anyone says “shock treatment”, what immediately pops into your mind? It was any scene from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, wasn’t it? Even though I’ve talked to people who had shock therapy and were able to manage life very well aftewards, thank you very much, I STILL think of a comotose Jack Nicholson whenever I hear anyone say “shock therapy.”
That’s not what shock therapy, or electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), is all about, although the jury is still out whether ECT can cause permanent brain damage.
What Is It All About, Then?
Yup — you still get a jolt of electric juice to the noggin, but not in the massive doses given to Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Why do this to someone (insert your own joke here)? This triggers a grand mal seizure in the body. Now, a grand mal seizure is painful, so a patient always gets anethesia or some kind of painkiller before the power is turned on.
Also, it’s illegal to just subject anyone to electroconvulsive therapy. The patient has to sign papers to allow it. Also, the patient has to under go a round of antidepressants first. There are people with depression, schizophrenia or other mental illnesses that will not respond to any medication. It’s for these people that ECT is sometimes recommended.
You also get a basic chesk up and have to have blood tests done in order for the doctors to know whether your body is healthy enough for shock treatment.
You get all padded up, get a heart monitor on and the anesthesia kicks in so you are asleep. The juice is turned on and the seizure lasts from half a minute to a whole minute.
December 17th, 2008 at 1:16 am
[...] Go! you will never beleive Share and Enjoy: [...]
February 12th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
[...] for mental illness were not developed. Often, treatment back then consisted of a combination of shock therapy and talk therapy. But still, that would have been preferable to what Pollock did [...]
February 22nd, 2009 at 8:03 pm
[...] Shock therpay (usually reserved for sucidal cases) [...]