Bilateral and Unilateral ECT: Follow-Up Study and Critique
T. G. BIDDER M.D.1,
J. J. STRAIN M.D.2, , and
L. BRUNSCHWIG PH.D.3
1 Associate professor of pharmacology and psychiatry, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, Ohio
2 Assistant clinical professor of psychiatry, Montefiore Hospital and Medical Center, division of Albert Einstein College of Medicine, 1ll East 210th St., Bronx, N. Y. 10467
3 Associate professor, department of psychiatry and neurology, Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.
The authors conclude from their work and from a critical review of the literature that unilateral ECT is likely to result in reduced memory dysfunction during the immediate treatment period and to require more treatment sessions for satisfactory immediate therapeutic response. In the patient who is a guarded risk, attainment of a transiently reduced memory loss with a method likely to require additional anesthetic exposure (more treatments) would appear to be unwarranted. The authors stress the need for further studies using careful methodological design and techniques.
