شکایت فقدان خاطرات شخصی پس از الکتروشوک درمانی: مدرکی دال بر اختلال شبه جسمی؟

The principal reason for reluctance to use electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is neither a lack of efficacy nor a finding of untoward risks, but the anticipation that patients may suffer profound and prolonged loss of personal memories. Critics picture ECT as “erasing the memory slate,” much as a cloth wipes away the scribbles on a chalk-board. Although an acute confusional syndrome commonly accompanies the anesthetic and the seizure, the memories of life events, the skills needed for work, and the learning of new material are as efficient as those experienced by older patients’ siblings, spouses, and relatives of similar age, who are likely to suffer age-impaired memory.1., 2., 3. and 4. The opinion that “for rare patients, the retrograde amnesia due to ECT can be profound, with the memory loss extending back years prior to the receipt of the treatment” is an example of the view of the treatment risks.5 The evidence comes mainly from personal reports and surveys of patient recollections of their experience with the treatment.5,6 Such reports are rare, even in the surveys, but the poignancy of the complaints and the devastating details of the losses are frightening to readers.7,8 Two voices, of Marilyn Rice,9 and Ann Donahue,10,11 both of whom were successfully treated with ECT for severe depressive illnesses, express these complaints eloquently.