MYTH
6- SHOCK THERAPY CAUSES BRAIN DAMAGE
The Origin
Passing an electric current through the brain to spark a chemistry-shifting seizure seems crude if not barbaric. Hollywood portrays restrained patients convulsing in pain before becoming passive and sustaining permanent memory loss and personality changes. (See: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and American Horror Story: Asylum.) Indeed, in 1950s psychiatric hospitals, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) was used to “treat” everything from unruly behavior to homosexuality. And those perceptions persist: In a U.K. survey, about 20 percent of respondents said they fear dying if they receive ECT.
The Truth
For people dealing with severe, treatment-resistant depression, ECT is often the only option. While antidepressant meds generally have a 50 to 60 percent success rate, ECT is effective 70 to 90 percent of the time. Studies consistently show that memory loss from ECT is usually temporary and that the treatment is safe. Patients also experience no pain from the current, and there’s no visible convulsing. Overall, ECT is a highly effective antidepressant treatment—and for suicide prevention, it’s significantly superior to drug therapy. What’s more, patients often see dramatic improvement after just a week or two of ECT, versus the six to eight weeks needed for antidepressants to take full effect. Then there are the drugs’ possible side effects: weight gain, sex drive changes, sleep disturbances, and upset stomach.
So each time you hear “vaccine,” you automatically think “autism.”
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