Electroconvulsive therapy has a negative connotation in many circles, but is it getting a bad rap? Dr Andrade offers thoughtful counterpoints to the criticism.
Patients with multiple sclerosis commonly have neuropsychiatric comorbidity. ECT may be used to treat severe and life-threatening forms of mental illness when other modalities have failed or when a rapid response is required. Read on to find out more.
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) use in children and adolescents is much less common than in adults, and the evidence base for its use in youth is limited. This study reports outcomes of a cohort of youth treated with ECT at an academic medical center.
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is thought to lead to poor response to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in depressed patients. This study assessed symptom-severity outcomes among depressed patients with and without comorbid BPD who received ECT.
How many older adults receive electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for treatment-resistant depression? Among those who receive ECT, how many finish the course? What factors might predict patients' continuation of ECT? Explore these topics in this journal CME activity.
In this letter to the editor, the authors describe a small population of patients unable to receive ECT due to medical risks who received ketamine for depression.
In this letter to the editor, Dr Kellner and colleagues comment on the article "A Systematic Review of the Utility of Electroconvulsive Therapy in Broadly Defined Obsessive-Compulsive-Related Disorders" by dos Santos-Ribeiro et al.
Here, read about a patient who developed a rotator cuff injury after receiving modified ECT. This vignette emphasizes the importance of ensuring muscle relaxation prior to administering ECT, especially in high-risk patients.
ECT has shown positive results in severe cases of OCD. Here, the authors report 3 cases of patients with severe OCD who responded differently to ECT. Their findings may surprise you.
Obsessive-compulsive-related disorders include conditions such as body dysmorphic disorder and skin-picking disorder, as well as tic disorders and self-injurious behaviors. Could electroconvulsive therapy be an effective treatment option? Read this review to find out the most up-to-date information on this important topic.
Although ECT is effective for catatonia, it is unknown whether it contributes to the onset of a pulmonary embolism from a residual deep vein thrombosis. This case series examines and proposes safety methods for ECT in catatonia patients with a deep vein thrombosis. Read on to find out more.
Baclofen, a French Exception, Seriously Harms Alcohol Use Disorder Patients Without Benefit
To the Editor: Dr Andrade’s analysis of the Bacloville trial in a recent Clinical and Practical Psychopharmacology column, in which he concluded that “individualized treatment with high-dose baclofen (30-300 mg/d) may be a useful second-line approach in heavy drinkers” and that “baclofen may be particularly useful in patients with liver disease,” deserves comment.1
First, Andrade failed to recall that the first pivotal trial of baclofen, ALPADIR (NCT01738282; 320 patients, as with Bacloville), was negative (see Braillon et al2).
Second, Dr Andrade should have warned readers that Bacloville’s results are most questionable, lacking robustness. Although he cited us,3 he overlooked the evidence we provided indicating that the Bacloville article4 was published without acknowledging major changes to the initial protocol, affecting the primary outcome. Coincidentally (although as skeptics, we do not believe in coincidence), the initial statistical team was changed when data were sold to the French pharmaceutical company applying for the marketing authorization in France. As Ronald H. Coase warned, “If you torture the data long enough, it will confess.”
MY ACCOUNT