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This is so expected and routine on ECT wards that hospital staff become inured to making chart notations like "Marked organicity" or "Pt. extremely organic" without thinking anything of it. A nurse who has worked for years on an ECT ward says:
Some people seem to undergo drastic personality changes. They come in the hospital as organized, thoughtful people who have a good sense of what their problems are. Weeks later I see them wandering around the halls, disorganized and dependent. They become so scrambled they can't even have a conversation. Then they leave the hospital in worse shape than they came in. (Anonymous psychiatric nurse, quoted in Bielski, 1990)
A standard information sheet for ECT patients calls the period
of most acute organic brain syndrome a "convalescence period" and warns patients not to drive, work, or drink for three weeks (New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, undated). Coincidentally, four weeks is the maximum time period for which proponents of ECT can claim alleviation of psychiatric symptoms (Opton, 1985), substantiating the statement made by Breggin (1991, pp. 198-99) and throughout the ECT literature that the organic brain syndrome and the "therapeutic" effect are the same phenomenon.
The information sheet states as well that after each shock the patient "may experience transitory confusion similar to that seen in patients emerging from any type of brief anesthesia." This misleading characterization is belied by two doctors' published observations of patients after ECT.(Lowenbach and Stainbrook, 1942). The article begins by stating "A generalized convulsion leaves a human being in a state where all that is called the personality has been extinguished."
A compliance with simple commands like opening and closing the eyes and the appearance of speech usually coincide. The first utterances are usually incomprehensible, but soon it is possible to recognize first the words and then sentences, although they may have to be guessed at rather than directly understood...
If at this time patients were given a written order to write their name, they would not ordinarily follow the command...if then the request was repeated orally, the patient would take the pencil and write his name. At first the patient produces only scribbling and has to be constantly urged to continue. He may even drop back into sleep. But soon the initial of the first name may be clearly discernible...Usually 20 to 30 minutes after a full-fledged convulsion the writing of the name was again normal...
The return of the talking function goes hand in hand with the writing ability and follows similar lines. The muttered and seemingly senseless words and maybe the silent tongue movements are the equivalent of scribbling.. .But as time goes on it "is possible to establish question and answer sessions.. .From now on, the perplexity of the patient arising from his inability to grasp the situation pervades his statements.
He may ask if this is a jail. ..and if he has committed a crime.. The efforts of the patient to re-establish their orientation almost always follow the same line: "Where am I."... know you" (pointing to the nurse)... to the question "What is my name?" "I do not know"...
The patient's behavior when asked to perform a task such as to get up from the bed where he lies demonstrates another aspect of the process of recovery.. .he does not act according to voiced intentions. Sometimes urgent repetition of the command would set off the proper movements; in other cases beckoning had to be initiated by pulling the patient from the sitting position or removing one leg from the bed.. .But the patient then frequently stopped doing things and the next series of actions, putting on his shoes, tying the laces, leaving the room, had each time to be expressly commanded, pointed out, or the situation had to be actively forced. This behavior indicates lack of initiative...
It is possible, indeed likely, that a patient and her family could read the entire information sheet mentioned earlier and have
no idea that ECT involves convulsions. The words "convulsion" or "seizure" appear not at all. The sheet states that the patient will have "generalized muscular contractions of a convulsive nature".
Recently Dr. Max Fink, the country's best-known shock doctor, offered to let the media interview a patient right after a course of electroshock... for a fee of $40,000 (Breggin, 1991, p. 188).
It is common for persons who have received ECT to report being "in a fog", without any of the judgment, affect, or initiative of their former selves, for a period of up to one year post-ECT. Afterwards they may have little or no memory of what happened during this period.
I experienced the explosion in my brain. When I woke up from the blessed unconsciousness I did not know who I was, where I was, nor why. I could not process language. I pretended everything because I was afraid. I did not know what a husband was. I did not know anything. My mind was a vacuum. (Faeder, 1986)
I just completed a series of 11 treatments and am in worse shape than when I started. After about 8 treatments I thought I had improved from my depression.. . I continued and my effects worsened. I began experiencing dizziness and my memory loss increased. Now that I had the 11th my memory and thinking abilities are so bad I wake up in the morning empty-headed. I don't remember many past events in
my life or doing things with the various people in my family. It is hard to think and I don't enjoy things. I can't think about anything else. I can't understand why everyone told me this procedure was so safe. I want my brain back. (Johnson, 1990)
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