Maintenance Electroconvulsive Therapy

Since the other treatment options did not meet the expectations in treatment resistant patients, maintenance electroconvulsive therapy (m-ECT) recently regained interest as a treatment option . Although it has long been applied as a treatment, studies of m-ECT lacks strong evidence for effectiveness, safety and the choice of application method because of problems regarding methodology, small sample sizes and scarcity of randomized, double-blind, controlled trials. Besides several points about treatment remains uncertain. Some of these troubled points are the selection of patients that will receive m-ECT, schedule and procedure of the application, the duration of the treatment, the assessment and follow-up of side effects and concomitant medication with drugs. Therefore, some guidelines recommended it for a particular group of patients and some rejected its application with a cautious consideration. The terminology, applications and rationales in different disorders, possible side effects and concomitant drug use are discussed in this review. Further studies with broader samples are needed to clarify the issues of effectiveness and adverse events in m-ECT.