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Updated: Jul 15, 2025

Electroconvulsive Seizures in Rats and Fractionation of Their Hippocampi to Examine Seizure-induced Changes in Postsynaptic Density Proteins
Published on: August 15, 2017
Regulatory and Service System Challenges in Accessing Electroconvulsive Therapy for Catatonia in the Presence of
Michael Couse1, Michael Makhinson2, Patrick Kelly2
1Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California.
Abstract:
In a recent letter to the editor, Dr. Miller and colleagues1 highlighted the disparity of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) across different states, and the challenges faced by a patient in Colorado for whom ECT was deemed the most appropriate treatment but was not available in this location, forcing the patient to seek care in New Mexico. A subsequent letter by Dr. Ong and colleagues2 presented an additional case, in a different location, where a delay in ECT treatment because of state regulations contributed to substantial patient morbidity. In this letter, we present a patient seen at our facility in California, a state with some of the most stringent regulations regarding ECT treatment in adolescents.3 This case illustrates how ECT was eventually approved by the court system only after the patient's continual deterioration, despite receiving intensive medical treatment on an inpatient pediatric medical unit for a duration of 80 days. Care providers and the patient's family were forced to witness this decline until the patient reached "an emergency situation" and ECT was "deemed a lifesaving treatment," as the California Welfare and Institutions Code (WIC) § 5,326.8(a) forbids the procedure under any other circumstances.
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