Electroconvulsive therapy for major depression in an elderly person with epilepsy.
The case of a 72-year-old woman with a history of 40 years of epilepsy and medication-refractory severe depression is described. Despite the chronicity of the present depressive episode, mild MRI pathology and somatic complications, especially pneumonia and drug-induced hyponatraemia, we observed rapid and complete remission of depressive symptoms in the course of ECT. Neither cognitive impairment nor a perceptible influence on the neurological illness was seen, and no increase in seizure threshold has been observed during the course of 2 years maintenance ECT treatment. This article is offered in an attempt to enrich the clinical literature in this field and therefore encourage psychiatrists to consider ECT and MECT as a safe and efficacious option in epileptic patients with major depressive disorder.
Kucia
Krzysztof Artur
KA
Stepańczak
Radosław
R
Tredzbor
Beata
B
D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D015897:Comorbidity; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000628:therapy*; D004351:Drug Resistance; D004565:Electroconvulsive Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D016896:Treatment Outcome