Medical Problems of Geriatric Psychiatric Patients and Younger Controls During Electroconvulsive Therapy

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Medical problems occurring during electroconvulsive therapy were studied in a population of 293 psychiatric inpatients who received 2,809 treatments. Geriatric patients (N = 199) developed significantly more medical problems that required medical treatment or temporary discontinuation of electroconvulsive therapy than did younger controls (N = 94). The most important of these were cardiovascular in nature. Despite their increased frequency, the majority of medical problems that occurred were reversible. Electroconvulsive therapy therefore appeared to be a safe procedure for elderly psychiatric patients.