Unilateral ECT: advantages and efficacy in the treatment of depression

Electroconvulsive therapy is an efficacious treatment for some acute or drug resistant psychiatric disorders. However, there is some concern with memory impairment and brain damage and in order to decrease these complications, some changes to the technical aspect of electroconvulsive therapy were implemented during the last few decades. One of the major changes is the use of unilateral electrical stimulation on the non-dominant hemisphere which leads to less memory impairment and faster recovery time of cognitive functions. However, for optimal efficacy several variables have to be understood and integrated: electrodes placement, interelectrodes distance, waveform stimuli.