Survey Finds Most ECT Patients Suffer Long-term Memory Loss

The third paper¹ from our international survey of 1,144 electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) recipients and family members is now published, in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry. The first two papers reported that most recipients felt that the treatment either made no difference or made things worse,² and that most were not adequately informed about the risks.³

The third paper¹ reports on memory loss. On four different measures, memory loss as a result of the ECT was reported by between 61 and 84 percent of patients, and by 51 to 73 percent of relatives.

For example, 71 percent of patients reported reduced ability to retain new information (anterograde amnesia) and 80 percent reported loss of autobiographical memories of events before ECT (retrograde amnesia).

Even when memory loss is acknowledged by ECT advocates it is often described as temporary. But in our survey, most (65 percent) of those people reporting anterograde amnesia said it lasted for more than three years. Most (81 percent) of those reporting retrograde amnesia said it lasted more than three years.

All measures of memory deficit were correlated with the number of ECTs received (a "dose effect" indicating a causal relationship) and were worse with bilateral electrode placement compared to unilateral.

There was no evidence that memory loss had reduced in recent years, as often suggested.

Examples of lost memories cited in the paper included:

"Basically my whole childhood."

"Most of childhood memories gone."

"Early birthdays, Christmas."

"I can't remember a single teacher from high school or a single kid in my class."

"Unable to remember being at Uni."

"Can't remember any family trips, sometimes not even with photos."

"Death of my daughter."

"My uncle's funeral."

"Every part of my son’s first few years—milestones, likes and dislikes, first steps."

"Birth of four children.

Comments from the three members of our research team who have had ECT:

Sue Cunliffe (England):

"All my medical training and life experiences were stolen from me. I could not recognise faces of friends or family. I went from being a doctor to being unable to do primary school maths. I could not navigate to the shops or walk around familiar places. I lost me. I lost my independence. What is worse is that instead of psychiatry caring about me, they denied my injuries."

Sarah Hancock (USA):

“This survey demonstrates my experience wasn't as rare an outlier as my doctors, counselors and mental health staff led me to believe. It is profoundly disorienting to have no frame of reference for daily interactions with family, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, let alone erasing all education, work experience and cultural cues. Shared memories and life experiences are the foundation of relationships and identity. Erase them and I became a rudderless ship without an anchor.”

Lisa Morrison (Northern Ireland):

“It was a clear violation of my rights and dignity to have been given a treatment which stole memories of my precious children, and I was never told this could happen. The people who were meant to help me heal from extensive trauma and abuse, probably unwittingly, compounded the harm. Informed consent is everybody's right. People must be told all possible risks.”

Significantly, the United Kingdom’s largest mental health nongovernmental organization, Mind, has endorsed the paper’s findings.

In an article in one of the UK’s leading newspapers, Rosie Weatherley, Information Content Manager at Mind, said:

“Mind echoes concerns raised by this research—the evidence base for ECT has never been fit for purpose and this latest study further substantiates the need for a re-think about whether and when this treatment is offered to patients. The need for better patient information about ECT has never been clearer. The research also raises profound questions about the likelihood and extent of memory loss that patients risk with this procedure, and whether or not those risks are communicated effectively.”

Psychiatry Essential Reads

From Mushroom Trip or Cosmic Ride to Therapeutic Healing

Why Are We Still Calling People ‘Schizophrenic’?

Ms Weatherly added:

“We support calls for more research on ECT, and welcome further scrutiny to ensure only helpful, evidence-based treatments continue to have a place in our healthcare system. There are many effective treatments for mental health problems that do not share this risk profile.”

The same newspaper article reported that the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Experience (NICE) Guidelines, said that all patients should be "fully informed of the risks."

A 2023 joint report from the World Health Organisation and the United Nations stated:

“People being offered ECT should also be made aware of all its risks and potential short- and long-term harmful effects, such as memory loss and brain damage.”

The research paper’s recommendations include:

• Large, independent placebo-controlled studies to determine whether ECT has any effectiveness relative to placebo, at end of treatment and at various follow-up times, against which the adverse effects can be weighed in a cost-benefit analysis.
• A commitment to routinely monitoring for memory and other cognitive problems, during and after courses of ECT, using appropriately sensitive, comprehensive tests.

• Where necessary, rehabilitation for past, present, and future recipients of ECT.

  ECT is an extreme example of a broader problem - the medicalisation of the causes of, and solutions to, human distress and despair, brilliantly promoted by the pharmaceutical industry and all too often accepted without question by Psychiatry.

  The much needed paradigm shift towards a more humane, psycho-social, evidence-based approach is occurring, albeit more slowly than many of us would like. For example, in the UK, the number of people getting ECT has reduced from about 18,000 a year in the 1980s to about 3,000 today

  No doubt, the small and dwindling number of psychiatrists who still believe in using electricity to cause seizures are well intentioned. So were the last few psychiatrists to use lobotomies.