Electroconvulsive therapy

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), introduced in 1938 by Cerletti, has been of value in the treatment of depression in spite of the use of stimuli which were usually standardized and the wide variation in the inter-electrode impedance and in the resistivity of the tissues traversed. Accurate measurement of the peak current and the peak voltage in a large number of treatments has shown the need for a considerable choice of constant current values. The lack of measurements accounts for much of the variability in the clinical results.