Insight: Sept 24

It’s a truly shocking topic this week on Insight: electroshock treatments performed in Australia.

The number of electroshock or electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) treatments performed in Australia has almost doubled over the last ten years, with close to 30,000 sessions performed last financial year.

Many doctors claim it’s the most effective treatment for severe depression. But there are risks.

Significant memory loss, brain damage and cardiorespiratory complications are just some of the known side effects. At the extreme end, some patients can lose years’ worth of memories following ECT.

The treatments also have high relapse rates and some argue that there are no lasting benefits.

This week, Insight brings together psychiatrists, researchers, and patients who’ve had ECT – some voluntarily, some against their will – to ask how effective the therapy is in the long term and whether there are better alternatives to treat depression.

Guests include:
Natalie Deeth
Natalie Deeth can’t remember her wedding. She’s lost 27 years of her memories after undergoing approximately a hundred electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) treatments for major depression. But Natalie says the memory loss is worth it. She’s gone from being suicidal to leading a relatively normal, happy life. She says ECT was necessary because extensive psychotherapy and medication hadn’t worked.

Michael
Michael works in finance and suffers from major recurrent depression. He has regular ECT. Unlike Natalie Deeth, Michael says he suffers very few side effects. He says the symptoms of depression are far worse than any downsides of ECT.

“Ella”
“Ella” had ECT against her will. When she was 17 years old, one of the state Mental Health Review Tribunals went against her parents’ wishes and ruled she had to continue treatment. Even though ECT eventually helped improve her mental health, Ella wishes she had never had it done. She believes she would have improved with psychological therapy. She has severe memory loss and doesn’t remember anything from the period of treatment.

Colleen Loo
Psychiatrist Colleen Loo believes ECT is the most effective treatment for severe depression. She accepts some people can lose years’ worth of memories from their lives after ECT, but she says those people are at the extreme end of the spectrum.

John Read
Clinical psychologist John Read is against ECT. He recently did a literature review of the published research on the procedure and said “(there is) not a single study in 75 years that shows ECT had any lasting benefits beyond the end of treatment, compared to placebo”. He believes ECT causes brain damage and there are safe and effective alternatives.

Tuesday at 8.30pm on SBS ONE.