Milan Sojitra Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji
Amity Neuro Care and Epilepsy Clinic, India
Title: Clinical prediction of rate of response of endogenous depression to electroconvulsive therapy
Biography
Biography: Milan Sojitra Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji
Abstract
In depression, the identifi cation of predictors of fast response is necessary to improve patient selection for ECT. In a doubleblind, prospective study of 320 endogenously depressed patients treated with ECT, we attempted to identify the clinical characteristics of ECT responders which predicted fast (requiring ≤ 5 treatments to produce maximum recovery) and slow (requiring ≥ 6 treatments to produce maximum recovery) response to ECT. Of the 220 ECT responders in the study, 130were fast and 90were slow responders. We found that male sex, and greater age associated with lesser initial severity of depression were signifi cantly associated with fast recovery. Surprisingly, factors suggested or expected to predict good outcome with ECT failed to predict fast outcome. Finally, the treatment variables of mean seizure duration and stimulus waveform were found to be unrelated to recovery rate. Th e fi ndings are briefl y discusseda