[Electroconvulsive therapy in clinical practice].

Between September 1st, 1994, and the end of August, 1995, 3% of all inpatients (21 of 731) were treated with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) at the Department of General Psychiatry at the University Hospital for Psychiatry in Vienna. These patients suffered from psychotic and/or therapy-resistant depression (n = 15), therapy-resistant schizoaffective psychosis (n = 3), and catatonic schizophrenia (n = 3). ECT was administered in short-time anaesthetised and muscle relaxed patients. On average, each patient was treated with ECT on 9 non-consecutive days. As a rule, electrodes were placed unilaterally over the non-dominant hemisphere at the beginning. In four cases electrodes were placed bifronto-temporally. To be considered as effective the seizure had to last for at least 25 s. In shorter seizure duration ECT was repeated up to a maximum of three times in one session. With this procedure a reduction in clinical global impressions of -3.7 points was achieved in ECT-treated patients, who had been considered to be "severely" to "most severely" ill according to CGI before starting ECT. ECT proved to be effective for treating severe depression and catatonic schizophrenia, with only minor and reversible side effects. For establishing a favorable relation between good clinical outcome and remarkable few side effects, the following factors seem to be of importance, in accordance with the literature: (1) application of biphasic short-impulse stimuli in anaesthetised and muscle relaxed patients; (2) measurement of static impedance to avoid high skin impedance and short circuits. (3) at the beginning of each ECT series unilateral electrode placement over the non-dominant hemisphere; (4) ECT three times weekly on non-consecutive days.