ECT can be beneficial – and patients should have the right to choose

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I have personally met many people with bipolar who’ve told me they wouldn’t still be here if it wasn’t for ECT (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

The article describing Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) as “dangerous” in last week’s Independent triggered a passionate debate in our eCommunity. Many voices are saying ECT has been life-changing, often life-saving.

When people with bipolar are at their most unwell, they, and their doctors, often have to make difficult decisions about treatment, weighing up the benefits with potential side effects.

I have personally met many people with bipolar who’ve told me they wouldn’t still be here if it wasn’t for ECT. The suicide rate is 20 times higher for people with bipolar, so our position as a charity and a collective voice for those with the condition is that they need as many treatment options as possible.

There is substantial evidence to prove the benefits of ECT, and a recent review found that it is the “most effective treatment for severe, psychotic or treatment-resistant depression”. It’s a common belief that ECT is straight out of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest where the staff use force and out-dated equipment to control the patients. These misconceptions create fear and stigmatise people using ECT.

With modern ECT, patients are usually given a muscle relaxant or general anaesthetic. This means many clinicians – psychiatrists, anaesthetists and mental health nurses – need to work together to improve the patient experience. Instead of the steady stream of electricity that used to be given, modern ECT uses a series of brief electrical pulses, which stimulates the brain.

The article states that there are concerns ECT can cause “irreparable” and “severe” brain damage. There is no evidence to support this. It’s not fully understood how or why ECT works, but it’s thought that the effects of ECT gradually build with each treatment and that it causes the release of certain brain chemicals, which seem to stimulate the growth of some areas in the brain that tend to shrink with depression.

Some degree of autobiographical memory loss, especially from the time period during which ECT is administered, can be a common and difficult side effect, although the experiences vary widely for every individual. Even so, many patients who have received ECT themselves say that it is an effective and necessary treatment.

Dr Tania Gergel, a senior research fellow at King’s College London who has a diagnosis of bipolar and who has had multiple courses of ECT, including during a pregnancy, says: “Having ECT wasn’t frightening. I have noticed no deterioration of intellectual ability or capacity to build new memories, and have been able to successfully resume my academic career.”

Richard Hopkins, who has a diagnosis of bipolar, says: “Four lots of ECT treatment pulled me out of depression after only one week. There’s a lot of misunderstanding around but it really helped me. The only thing is that you get buzzy for about two minutes when you come round. And the only memory loss I had was about what happened in hospital – but that wasn’t a bad thing. There were no headaches, no significant memory loss and no other side effects at all. My consultant psychiatrist told me that it’s saved many lives, I think it’s saved mine.”

The article also states that 67 per cent of people who have ECT are women and implies there’s a sinister reason behind this gender difference. This is mainly because depression is much more common in women, and is even safe and effective during pregnancy when certain medications might harm the foetus.

As a charity, we welcome a conversation. ECT is not the answer for everyone. But it is essential – a matter of life and death even – that everyone with bipolar should have the choice.

Simon Kitchen

CEO of Bipolar UK

Christian extremism

When the liberal carpet is rolled back in Muslim countries, it is branded as Islamic or Islamist extremism, radicalism or fundamentalism by Western media. So why is the overturning of Roe v Wade in the US not being described as Christian extremism or fundamentalism? That is what it is.

I fail to understand why you can’t accept that there is conservatism in the Muslim world just as there is in the Christian world, without demonising Muslims.

You either need to tone down your rhetoric when it comes to reporting on the Muslim world or you should use the same phraseology to describe what is unfolding in your own backyard. Otherwise, it seems to be that you are just looking for some ammunition to vent your dislike of Muslims.

Moreover, soon there will be the same pressure building up in Britain to change the abortion laws because whatever happens across the pond finds its way here too.

The West continues to present itself as liberal, but we are now living in a post-liberal world. There are a lot of illiberal things happening in Britain, France and the US in the name of bogus liberalism, though if they were happening in a Muslim country, they would be branded as Islamist extremism.

I don’t know why we describe the US as the “land of the free” when millions of women, African Americans and members of minority communities are having to fight every day just to breathe.

The time has come for us to adjust our mindset about the US instead of romanticising about a land that doesn’t exist.

Mr J Khan

Address supplied

Tractor porn

Marie Le Conte makes a very good point when she castigates those MPs who condemn the whistleblowers who reported Neil Parish for watching pornography in the chamber.

However, surely the main transgression is less what he was watching, provided it was not illegal material, but that he was watching anything at all while at work. He could have been watching tennis or cricket or Countdown for all that it matters. He was being paid a handsome salary to represent his constituents, not passing the time looking at his iPhone, whatever was on it.

I have watched televised proceedings in parliament and constantly have seen honourable members looking at devices, sometimes thumbing a keyboard while doing so. What they are doing is impossible to ascertain, so I’ve taken the charitable view that it is parliamentary business and not putting in their Tesco order – but who knows?

For the £84,000 per annum plus expenses paid to MPs, it is not unreasonable to expect them to do a full day’s work on behalf of their constituents and not indulge in distractions or even paid work other than the occasional newspaper article.

Patrick Cleary

Gloucestershire

A false Lib Dem dawn?

Sean O’Grady’s article rekindled my feelings at the time of the car crash that was coming together of a Cameron and Clegg government.

My experience of parish and local officials is that Lib Dems work for the community and are worthy of election. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to have a robust enough organisation to make an impact on the national stage. But perhaps there is a sea change coming.

Certainly, in the past decade, we have experienced a dreadful failure of government, culminating in the shameful, inept and dishonest government overseen by Boris Johnson and his yes men and women.

Mr Clegg halted the rise of the Lib Dems by his involvement in government with Mr Cameron and U-turning on tuition fees certainly severely checked any meaningful public support.

Being such a small party, with far less exposure and financial backing than the Conservatives or Labour, it is difficult to really be confident that their policies are sound and achievable. However, perhaps that will change in the future and benefit the country.

I do hope that this is not yet another false dawn and the Lib Dems succeed in contributing positively to the rich pageant of Britain’s politics. Goodness knows that we need fresh ideas and honest challenges to the current busted flush of a government.

Keith Poole

Basingstoke

I was deeply unimpressed to see my MP and former prime minister Theresa May pontificating during the second reading debate on the government’s Northern Ireland Protocol Bill.

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She seems to lack sufficient self-awareness to realise that it was her fault that the Great Charlatan Boris Johnson was installed in No 10 Downing Street, and that consequently, ministers are now scrambling around to find excuses for neutralising elements of the potentially disastrous protocol that he negotiated.

After David Cameron ratted on his promise to see us out of the EU, if that was the way we voted in the referendum, Theresa May very willingly took on the job of getting us out, and if she had stuck with her original mantra “Brexit means Brexit”, then history could have viewed her with a favourable eye.

Instead, she seemed to allow herself to be deflected by the influence of business pressure groups such as the Confederation of British Industry, and for the sake of their narrow, sectional interests, she tried to fob us off with a counterfeit “Brexit means Brexit in Name Only”.

To be honest, I think the best thing she can do now is to keep quiet, and allow others to sully themselves trying to sort out the totally unnecessary post-Brexit political and legal mess to which she herself contributed so much.

Dr DR Cooper

Maidenhead