CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Patients suffering from depression in the Charlotte area are turning to electroconvulsive therapy for relief.
It sounds like a medieval torture procedure, but psychiatrists at Atrium Health say it's safe and can actually help heal ailments like severe depression or bipolar disorder.
According to Dr. Ervin Thompson, psychiatrist and ECT specialist at Atrium Health, patients are under anesthesia and do not feel pain during the procedure. Electric currents are quickly run through a patient’s brain, causing a brief seizure and ‘reset’ of sorts.
“No one really knows how it works,” Dr. Thompson said. “One theory is that it works by somehow resetting the circuits and the network firing of the brain, like rebooting your computer or kicking the television set.”
He says patients are often skeptical at first, but nearly 70 percent report feeling infinitely better after the treatment.
“You wouldn’t think that this is something that would be good for people, I admit that,” Dr. Thompson said. “But it turns out that it’s extremely safe. And It’s probably the most effective treatment for depression known to medicine.”
Dr. Thompson hopes to break the stigma of ECT, largely built on how “electroshock” therapy is portrayed in movies and the media.
“There’s a special stigma about it because of the history of it,” Dr. Thompson said. “But that’s nothing like what we do today. We do not give patients treatment against their will. It is safer than having a baby and less painful than going to the dentist.”
For patients with depression who haven't had luck with medications, like Cheryl Lattimore, ECT has been life-saving.
“I actually could feel myself getting well,” Lattimore said. “It’s such a relief to not worry about getting depressed again, because I don’t think I will as long as I have ECT. It changed my life.”
Dr. Thompson says most patients need to undergo a few treatments before seeing significant improvements.
The cost of each treatment varies but is generally around $2,000, and is usually covered by most insurance providers.
If you’d like to learn more about electroshock therapy and other brain stimulation treatment options, you can visit brain stimulation services at Atrium Health or call 704-512-7578.
