ELECTROCONVULSIVE THERAPY FOLLOWING AN OPERATION FOR COARCTATION OF THE AORTA
SHIRLEY RUBERT M.D.1
1 Instructor, Department of Psychiatry, State University of New York Upstate Medical Center and Supervising Psychiatrist, Syracuse Psychiatric Hospital.
Improvement in and more widespread use of corrective surgical procedures for congenital anomalies will result in a new life experience for many patients. It will also increase the life span for some of them. These patients may present new problems for the psychiatrist. In the case reported here, unmodified electroconvulsive therapy was used without untoward effects in a man who had undergone a major intrathoracic vascular surgical procedure involving the use of a synthetic graft. The first treatment was given 47 days following the operation. Certain dramatic aspects of the preoperative and postoperative reactions have also been described.
