Nine elderly depressed patients were given ECT in courses which alternated unilateral and bilateral electrode placement; recovery times were measured. When compared with similar times for younger patients, recovery took on average five times as long from unilateral treatment and nine times as long from bilateral. Within the group, bilateral treatment took significantly longer for recovery than unilateral treatment and was significantly more sensitive to cumulative effect and interval effect.
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Fraser et al. (1978) studied this question.