A few years back, shock treatment was considered very unwanted and painful procedure of treatment for any patient on whom it was to be used. A girl naming Anamika, who was recommended shock therapy so that she could battle her schizophrenia disease, was only a 20-year-old girl back then. She got scared with the mere thought of it and pictured a bald man whose head is caught between the pincers of a medieval contraption, shouting and moaning in agony with his eyes rolled back.
She was scared while making the decision, but her family and doctor supported her throughout the fight. After 6 years, when she tells the cure she got, people get confused and with wide opened eyes, their response is “They still do it?” Anamika, then, clears their confusion with the reply that it’s not like it is portrayed in the movies. She suffered a lot with the disease and hr condition went down to the level where medical drugs tortured her more than they cure her.
Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) is the medical term which is not frequently used. Doctors say that nowadays, slowly but steadily, this treatment is getting patients’ nod as doctors are using anesthetic and tranquilizing drugs so that the pain, fear and risk of violent muscle spasms could be minimized. “Previously, the procedure was used without anesthesia,” says Dr. R Thara, director of Schizophrenia Research Foundation. Though effective, she said, the procedure often led to injuries and fractures. “It also created a lot of fear in patients as they were aware of the seizure or fit,” she says.
Dr. B.N. Gangadhar, director of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore, is one of the leading advocates of ECT in the country. In the early 50s, when the medicines for mental illness were launched, the popularity of shock therapy dipped but medicines were found out to not cure all the maladies of mind. Dr. Gangadhar admitted that although ECT was `barbaric’ in the past without anesthesia and doctors overused it because of lack of alternative; the procedure has definitely evolved over the years. “The quantum of electricity used is just one-third of what was used in the past. Technology has also ensured that all the vitals are closely monitored,” he says. “And we always take the patients’ or their families consent. We do not drag them into a room like it is portrayed in movies,” he adds.
The use of ECT is argued as the results are not the same in all the cases. But what is sure is that ECT is seen to work very quickly with issues like depression and memory loss. Besides, India still lacks the infrastructure to support the modern form of the therapy.
