One-Year Follow-Up After Discontinuing Maintenance Electroconvulsive Therapy

Abstract

Almost half of the patients relapsed in 1 year after discontinuation of c/mECT, most of these within the first 3 months and all within the first 8 months. The risk of relapse is greater in the patients with diagnoses other than MDD. When discontinuing c/mECT, patients should be carefully followed up; and for those at risk of relapse, even permanent mECT should be considered. To the best of our knowledge, the present study is the first to report the prognosis of patients after discontinuing c/mECT.

Maintenance Electroconvulsive Therapy for Aggression and Self-Injurious Behavior in Two Adolescents With Autism and Catatonia

“…15,16,18,19 This is not surprising, given that recurrence of symptoms is frequently noted in other conditions for which maintenance ECT is given, such as mood or psychotic disorders, if ECT is withheld. 20 In 2010, Wachtel and colleagues published a case series of three autistic patients who required maintenance ECT for remission of catatonic symptoms after an initial course of ECT, with one patient having received a total of 286 treatments at the time of the publication. 18 We report here on two adolescents with autism and catatonia who were treated with an index course of ECT, followed by maintenance ECT.…”

Relapse and long-term cognitive performance after brief pulse or ultrabrief pulse right unilateral electroconvulsive therapy: A multicenter naturalistic follow up

“…We could not replicate the finding from the Columbia group that found less relapse in the older age group, probably because of a higher mean age in our group (Prudic et al, 2013). We found polarity and a longer current episode duration, that are inconsistently reported to be related to relapse (Huuhka et al, 2012;Martinez-Amoros et al, 2012;Prudic et al, 2013), not to be significantly higher in relapsed patients. In accordance with Prudic et al (2013) the number of ECTs to achieve remission was not related to relapse (p¼ 0.36).…”

“…Relapse or recurrence after full remission after ECT has been associated with demographical and clinical factors, like age, polarity, endogeneity, psychosis, duration of the current episode and pharmacoresistance (Bourgon and Kellner, 2000;Huuhka et al, 2012;Martinez-Amoros et al, 2012;Prudic et al, 2013). We could not replicate the finding from the Columbia group that found less relapse in the older age group, probably because of a higher mean age in our group (Prudic et al, 2013).…”

Pharmacogenetics in Electroconvulsive Therapy and Adjunctive Medications

“…The current remission rates after ECT appear to have declined [8,41]. In a metaanalysis to investigate the effect of previous pharmacotherapy failure on the effi cacy of ECT, the overall remission rate was reported to be 48.0% (281 of 585) and 64.9% (242 of 373) for patients with and without previous pharmaco therapy failure, respectively.…”