Posted by Crotale on July 27, 2008, at 21:48:41
In reply to Re: ECT cognitive side FX, posted by bleauberry on July 27, 2008, at 19:43:43
Well, obviously this is an individual reaction. When not coping with depression, I consider myself an excellent thinker (would have been a mathematician if depression hadn't stopped me from getting my doctorate). I've found my concentration improved since the ECT started working: for the first time in years I've been able to review some higher math, and I've been seriously considering going back to school.
The only side effect I've noticed (other than things that I'm pretty sure are caused by the anesthesia, not the ECT itself) is the word-finding difficulty. I'm at the point of maintenance ECT now so I'm hoping the anomia will go away or at least decrease.
Interestingly, one of the (many) pharmaceuticals that has been studied a bit for treatment/preventation of ECT's cognitive side effects is naltrexone, an opioid antagonist. I take the partial agonist buprenorphine; I wonder if that might have prevented me from having worse side effects. On the other hand, it might just be plain old good luck on my part. Regardless, I think whether it's something you should try or not depends on how bad your illness is, whether your condition is one of the types for which ECT is considered most likely to work (e.g., "classic" melancholic depression, catatonic schizophrenia, etc.), and the general cost/benefit analysis. I wouldn't recommend it for everyone, but I wouldn't tell everyone to avoid it, either.
One other thing: up until yesterday I've had right unilateral (RUL) ECT which mainly affects the temporal lobe; as such most of the cognitive side effects from RUL are memory-related. Bifrontal ECT may be more likely to affect your thinking. The reason I was particularly curious about side effects from bifrontal ECT is that my depression has returned to an extent since I dropped down to once every 2 weeks, so I've switched to "modified bifrontal." It's not true bifrontal but it is somewhat similar, including being 2-sided. It's a relatively new placement, so far believed to cause fewer cognitive effects than BF (and many fewer than traditional bilateral) but to be more effective than RUL.
I'll say I've had fairly good luck with ECT, to the point where I'm doing better than I have been in years. I may even be able to decrease my use of buprenorphine to as-needed rather than around-the-clock (which would be nice since it has a lot of side effects). I consider it a great success so far.
-Crotale
poster:Crotale
thread:842385
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/neuro/20080706/msgs/842488.html