chapotraphouse

I am sorry, maybe I shouldn't have a tendency to trauma dump and I forgot to add a content warning and spoiler.

Nouuu dw! It was more like horror story not as in scared but shocked on my side and not like fear tears but empathy ones. So np, no harm done!
(Though a spoiler would probably be good because I can imagine it affecting peeps or mb causing a trigger idk).

And thank you a lot for sharing all this and the info regarding my concerns; I hope I didn't send you back (further in) to a bad place with my comment...

I can imagine that ECT has some valid use cases, but treating it as a silver bullet as you mentioned, sounds kinda appalling.

Edit: Reading the Wikipedia article and just 🗿

Modern Use

[...] It has also been used to treat autism in adults with an intellectual disability, yet findings from a systematic review found this an unestablished intervention.

Schizophrenia

ECT is widely used worldwide in the treatment of schizophrenia. However, in North America and Western Europe it is invariably used only in treatment resistant schizophrenia when symptoms show little response to antipsychotics. ECT may improve medium-term clinical response relative to standard care, but may not affect other outcomes. Evidence is lacking to support the practice's superiority to placebo treatment (sham ECT) or antipsychotic supplementation.

Effects and adverse effects

[...] Severe adverse cardiac events occur in between one in forty and, maximally, one in fifteen patients administered ECT.

In one of the few jurisdictions where recent statistics on ECT usage are available, a national audit of ECT by the Scottish ECT Accreditation Network indicated that 77% of patients who received the treatment in 2008 were capable of giving informed consent.[138]

In the UK, in order for consent to be valid it requires an explanation in "broad terms" of the nature of the procedure and its likely effects.[139] One review from 2005 found that only about half of patients felt they were given sufficient information about ECT and its adverse effects[140] and another survey found that about fifty percent of psychiatrists and nurses agreed with them.[141]

A 2005 study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry described patients' perspectives on the adequacy of informed consent before ECT.[140] The study found that "About half (45–55%) of patients reported they were given an adequate explanation of ECT, implying a similar percentage felt they were not." The authors also stated:

Approximately a third did not feel they had freely consented to ECT even when they had signed a consent form. The proportion who feel they did not freely choose the treatment has actually increased over time. The same themes arise whether the patient had received treatment a year ago or 30 years ago. Neither current nor proposed safeguards for patients are sufficient to ensure informed consent with respect to ECT, at least in England and Wales.[140]