[Other treatments for depressive patients].

Electroconvulsive therapy(ECT) is one of the most important methods in treating depressive patients especially who can not be improved with medication. Meta analysis shows that ECT is superior to pharmacotherapy as acute treatment for depression. ECT was invented in 1938, and it took some improvement afterwards such as development of modified ECT and introduction of brief-pulse stimulation for the purpose of reducing adverse effects. However, adverse effects such as cognitive impairment are not completely solved, and some patients do not respond to ECT. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) and deep brain stimulation (DBS) are under investigation to get over the shortcomings of ECT.