ZAPPED

Last day of the challenge and phew! It has been wonderful and stressful at the same time. I have discovered some new blogs, made some friends (I hope) and learnt many new things. Also, something else that was awesome was that my pageviews went up a bit more than the usual (quite exciting). I just had ice-cream to celebrate the end of the challenge, not very healthy, I know, but it had lots of fruits and nuts it in (that’s got to count for something right?) Plus I didn’t finish the whole bowl.

For today’s post, I’d go back to my psychiatric posting. I already told how my undergraduate psychiatric exposure was next to nothing here, however, it wasn’t until I heard the word “ECT – electroconvulsive therapy” that I realized how little I really knew in psychiatry. Electroconvulsive therapy is a form of psychiatric treatment in which seizures (convulsions) are induced in patients to provide relief from psychiatric illnesses like major depression, mania, schizophrenia e.t.c. It is usually used as a last line of intervention. 

After hearing about ECT for a week, I decided it was time to witness one. Basically, electrodes (almost similar to those used during an ECG) are applied to the temples of the head and the patient is zapped. They begin to convulse (lasts a few minutes) then they fall asleep. This procedure is repeated about 5-6x or stopped when the patient is responding. 

Photo credit: wikipedia

Typically, I’ve been taught my whole life that seizures are bad for the brain, so I couldn’t seem to wrap my head around the fact that doctors would intentionally induce one on people and it would be beneficial for that matter. Well, I saw for myself that these patients did improve with ECT before the end of my posting. 

ECTs have some side effects though and they are confusion and memory loss. Anyway, now I’ve seen that something good could come out from something bad like been zapped.

Cheers all, see you again next year.