Postictal Trismus Complicating Electroconvulsive Therapy: A Case Report
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Sep 29, 2025
Pupillary Response as Assessment of Effective Seizure Induction by Electroconvulsive Therapy
Published on: April 11, 2019
Jessica Nguyen1, Louie Wang2,3, Fabiano A Gomes2,4
1From the School of Medicine, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
We report a case of a 72-year-old woman who experienced postictal episodes of trismus lasting several minutes on 6 occasions during a series of 18 episodes of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). There was no clear relationship between the development of trismus and any medications used during the treatments. The patient had no adverse outcomes or discomfort, but the development of trismus can put patients at significant risk.
We report a case of a 72-year-old woman who experienced postictal episodes of trismus lasting several minutes on 6 occasions during a series of 18 episodes of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). There was no clear relationship between the development of trismus and any medications used during the treatments. The patient had no adverse outcomes or discomfort, but the development of trismus can put patients at significant risk.
