ECT As Closed-Head Electrical Injury

Neurology recognizes that relatively minor head trauma—even without the delirium, loss of consciousness, and seizures associated with ECT— frequently produces chronic mental dysfunction and personality deterioration (Bernat et al., 1987). If a woman came to an emergency room in a confusional state from an accidental electrical shock to the head, perhaps from a short circuit in her kitchen, she would be treated as an acute medical emergency. If the electrical trauma had caused a convulsion, she might be placed on anticonvulsants to prevent a recurrence of seizures. If she developed a headache, stiff neck, and nausea—a triad of symptoms typical of post-ECT patients—she would probably be admitted for observation to the intensive care unit. Yet ECT delivers the same electrical closed-head injury, repeated several times a week, as an alleged means of improving mental function. ECT is electrically induced closed-head injury. 

The symptoms of mild to severe closed-head injury were listed in detail by Fisher (1985). They include impairment of every area of mental, emotional, and behavioral function, and confirm that the multiple adverse effects of ECT on the mind and brain are classic symptoms of closed head injury. McClelland et al. (1994) described the postconcussive syndrome in terms of 

The authors observed that between one-third and one-half of head injury victims experience this symptom cluster over the first few weeks and a substantial minority continue to experience it for months or a year or more. 

Head injury victims, including post-ECT patients, frequently develop an organic personality syndrome with shallow affect, poor judgment, 

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