Medical Students' Perceptions of Electroconvulsive Therapy: The Impact of Direct Exposure.

Objectives: Although electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has proven to be an efficacious treatment, the available literature indicates that some medical students have unfavorable perceptions of ECT. To the authors' knowledge, prior studies have not examined the impact of medical student participation in ECT on their perceptions of this modality. To determine if direct participation and observation affect medical students' perceptions of ECT differently, these 2 teaching methods were compared.

Electroconvulsive therapy performed 6 days after repair of an intracranial aneurysm using a liquid embolic system.

There exists a small, but growing body of literature that describes electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) performed on patients with intracranial aneurysms. These reports include patients with unrepaired aneurysms and others in which aneurysms have been repaired by clipping or coil embolization methods. To date, these cases have described favorable results and minimal complications.

Electroconvulsive therapy for depression in a Parkinson's disease patient with bilateral subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulators.

We report a patient with advanced Parkinson's disease (PD) who developed a recurrence of major depression with psychotic features after bilateral subthalamic nucleus (STN) deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) dramatically improved the depression without shifting electrode position or damaging the DBS hardware. This case suggests that ECT can be a safe and effective option for severe depression in PD patients treated with STN DBS.

Predictors of recovery from major depression among geriatric psychiatry inpatients: the importance of caregivers' beliefs.

Caregiver support is an important factor in recovery from depression among older patients. We examined whether caregivers' perceptions regarding patients' ability to control depressive symptoms were related to depression recovery. Depression treatment, demographics, number of depressive symptoms, and health were controlled.

A comparison of self-reported function assessed before and after depression treatment among depressed geriatric inpatients.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether self-perception of function among depressed, geriatric psychiatry inpatients improved as their depression resolved. Sixty-four older adults diagnosed with major depression were asked to evaluate their function upon admission to an inpatient psychiatry unit, and then again 3 months post-discharge. Subjects' caregivers also rated the patients' function at admission and 3 months after being discharged.