Electroconvul-sive Treatment in Continuation and Maintenance Treatment of Affective Di-sorders

Overview

In the submitted review the authors present contemporary finding and viewsregarding the use of electroconvulsive treatment in continuation and mainte-nance therapy of affective disorders. In the introduction they provide evi-dence of the efficacy of electroconvulsions in acute treatment of impairedmood and define the term continuation and maintenance electroconvulsivetreatment. In the main part of the paper the authors recapitulate the mostimportant publications which deal with their application during the periodafter 1987. The authors conclude despite methodological restrictions of thequoted sources that continuation and maintenance electroconvulsive thera-py is indicated in affective disorders with a tendency of early relapse, resis-tant to pharmacotherapy, which respond well to acute electroconvulsivetreatment, in psychotic depressions and affective disorder of old people whopoorly tolerate pharmacotherapy.

Key words:
affective disorders, electroconvulsive treatment, continuati-on electroconvulsive treatment, maintenance electroconvulsive treatment.