Is Metrazol therapy still used?
Due to the appearance of many other methods to treat mental disease, including neuroleptics and electroconvulsive therapy, metrazol was gradually discontinued in the late 40’s and is no longer in use.
What is Metrazol convulsive therapy?
a form of shock therapy involving the intravenous injection of Metrazol, a trade name for pentylenetetrazol, a powerful CNS stimulant that induces convulsions and coma. Because the incidence of fatality from this procedure was high, it was discontinued in the 1940s.
When was Metrazol therapy discontinued?
Insulin therapy and metrazol therapy were both started at McLean in 1938, but discontinued in 1941—although such therapies continued for many more years at some other hospitals. McLean doctors at the time determined that ECT was a more precise and less risky treatment.
When did electroshock therapy stop?
The use of ECT declined until the 1980s, “when use began to increase amid growing awareness of its benefits and cost-effectiveness for treating severe depression”.
Why is ECT controversial?
Reasons for Controversy Three reasons are given for the aversion: 1) ECT is considered old-fashioned and politically incorrect; 2) it is forced on the patient; and 3) the memory disturbances are so severe and persistent that no rational human being would undergo this procedure, no matter how well-intended.
Why was Metrazol therapy used?
Metrazol was first used in clinical experiments by Hungarian physician, Ladislaus von Meduna in 1933. Meduna reasoned that artificially induced epileptic convulsions might “cure” schizophrenia due to his observations of patients who had both epilepsy and schizophrenia.
Why was shock therapy used in asylums?
Shock Therapies Brought to the United States by Manfred Sakel, a German neurologist, insulin shock therapy injected high levels of insulin into patients to cause convulsions and a coma. After several hours, the living dead would be revived from the coma, and thought cured of their madness.
Why is ECT unethical?
ECT is not safe: it produces varying amounts of memory loss and other adverse effects on cognition in nearly everyone who receives it, typically lasting weeks or months after the last treatment (as well as many other adverse consequences, from ocular effects to postictal psychosis).