Suicide risk in bipolar patients can be significantly reduced by electroconvulsive therapy-more lifestyles

One of the largest studies to date on patients with untreatable bipolar disorder is that ECT (electroconvulsive therapy) can reduce the risk of suicide in high-risk patients by 84%, effectively treating about 72% of patients. Indicates that we can provide.

Bipolar disorder. It is one of the most common mental health disorders in which patients may exhibit emotional instability and experience very severe mood swings. This affects about 1% of Europeans. That is, about 5 million Europeans are suffering.

Bipolar disorder can cause a mixed state of mania and depression. This combination is suicidal because patients may experience both symptoms of depression (such as guilt and worthlessness) and mania symptoms (such as increased activity and a tendency to act never again) at the same time. It can lead to increased risk. Most patients can control their condition through prescription medications, but nearly one-third of patients are resistant to treatment.

Currently, with the largest ever study tracking treatments from bipolar patients and a single institution, ECT reduces the risk of suicide and makes the majority of patients with refractory bipolar disease more normal. It has been confirmed that you can return to a good life. This work will be presented at the ECNP conference after being partially published in the peer-reviewed journal “The World Journal of Biological Psychiatry”.

Between January 2006 and July 2019, 670 patients were referred to the University of Pisa Psychiatric Clinic for the treatment of ECT for bipolar disorder.

Dr. Julio Emily Oblancati of the University of Pisa School of Clinical Trials, said: “The ECT was invented in Italy, but nonetheless, few clinics currently offer treatment in Italy. Many patients who fail with other treatments are referred to the Pisa Clinic. As a result, we were able to collect a great deal of data from one clinic. “

Treatment has been very successful in treating patients with bipolar disorder and is a bipolar “mixture” of emotional hyperreactivity, hyperkinesia, aggression and perpetrator delusions, discoordination, catatonia and associated movement disorders. The remission rate of the symptoms characteristic of “condition” exceeded 60%. ..

“Most importantly, 77 patients were classified as at serious risk of suicide. Only 2 remained at serious risk after treatment and 65 showed no risk at all. This is an 84% reduction in suicide rates after ECT treatment. Other treatments did not show this level of acute improvement, “said Julio Blancati.

“This is a real study, not a clinical trial. Formal trials are difficult, many of these patients are probably unethical, and many are serious illnesses. They are usually multiple. Most of these patients ran out of treatment options because they were referred to us only after one treatment failure. When we sampled the patients who came to our hospital, about 93% failed with pharmacological treatment and 88%. Was found to have failed with two different drugs. In fact, each patient who visited the hospital tried an average of five different drugs with no success. “

The public tends to take a negative view of ECT, primarily based on the media representation of a very different world of psychiatry in the 1950s, but patients and psychiatrists generally treat it otherwise. Positive about the effects of ECT on mental health conditions that cannot or are difficult to treat. Modern ECT is performed under general anesthesia and leads to a rapid recovery from major depression (the main side effect is the possibility of temporary loss of recent memory).

It is usually given 2-3 times a week, but 6-16 treatments are required to be effective. In general, the use of ECT has recently decreased by about a third in the United States. This is despite the success of the treatment and the willingness to talk about the treatment of well-known patients such as Carrie Fisher. Despite the invention of ECT in Italy, the use of this technology is very limited, with fewer centers specializing in ECT in Italy than in most other countries of similar size. ..

“ECT is used for major depression, but less often in other stages of bipolar disorder, especially in so-called mixed states with low visibility. Many of the treatment-resistant bipolar catatonic and mixed states. We have found that patients with schizophrenia are misdiagnosed as having schizophrenia. These patients need to be given a chance by receiving appropriate treatment, “said Julio Blancati.

Dr. Henrycus Ruhe, a psychiatrist at Radboudumc Netherlands and chair of the ECNP Abstract and Poster Committee, commented:

“This study again shows that ECT may be a life-saving treatment and should not be withheld in patients who have difficulty treating mood disorders such as bipolar disorder. (Mainly temporary) memory Although we need to recognize adverse effects such as disability, these results show how fast and often how fast the response to ECT is.

This effectiveness generally outweighs the negative effects of these critically ill patients who would otherwise suffer much longer or may not receive any effective treatment. Unfortunately, despite long-term evidence, ECT is still considered a controversial treatment by the general public and the media, but it is also seen by many patients and relatives. This is also true in Italy, where there are currently very few centers that can offer ECT. This prejudice against modern-day ECT unfairly condemns both patients and psychiatry and refuses treatment for critically ill patients. “

This is an independent comment and Dr. Ruhe was not involved in this work.

(This article is published from the telegraph agency feed without any changes to the text. Only the headline has changed.)

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