Stick your fingers in a plug socket?

[Galant]

Okay - read this - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/295597.stm


The question I have is what on earth is 'dummy ECT'? Rub a balloon on your head? Blindfold you and stick you on a large paint mixer? Make you drink coke mixed with sherbet and alka seltza?

I mean how are you supposed to fake electrocution?

[Shogun]

They only got better quicker so they didnt have to have the treatment anymore.

[ajbrun]

I think (but I'm not sure) that the patients are anethesetised (sp?) during the treatment, so those who had the fake shocks wouldn't know it.

I don't think it's right to shock people, and not know why it works. I did psychology, and the teacher said it's like banging a TV when it's broken - we don't know why, but it helps.

[Alex]

Patients are indeed anaesthetised (try spelling that when you're drunk, or American) during ECT, so you would have no way of knowing if it had been done or not.

In this day and age of 'Evidence Based Medicine', why don't you think its right to give ECT if it works?

[ajbrun]

I don't think it's right because as it says in the article, some patients have memory loss, change in behaviour etc. Think about banging the TV when it's broken. It may fix the problem, but it could create more. We shouldn't do things like that unless we know how/why it works.