European Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine

Background: Electroconvulsive treatment (ECT) is a procedure that creates a generalized cerebral seizure by using an electric current and electrodes inserted in the cranial vault under anesthesia. Electrical charges are delivered through these electrodes to cause seizures. For the past sixty years, it has been employed as a therapeutic therapy for the treatment of psychiatric disorder. ECT has been reported to be useful for pharmacologically resistant mental illnesses1, but at the immediate cost of a loss in emotional processing speed.2Objectives: 1. To study the cognitive functions before, immediately after the first electroconvulsive therapy, and at the end of one week of last electroconvulsive therapy. 2. To compare the cognitive functions before and after electroconvulsive therapy administration. 3. To correlate the cognitive functions and illness variable with electroconvulsive therapy. Material & Methods:Study Design:  Hospital based prospective observational study. Study area: Manasa Psychiatry Hospital, Secunderbad, Telangana. Study Period: August 2022 – August 2023. Study population: Patients suffering from psychiatric illness and planned for electroconvulsive therapy as recommended treatment option. Sample size: Study consisted a total of 50 subjects.  Sampling Technique:   Simple Random sampling.Study tools and Data collection procedure: TOOLS USED: 1) Semi-structured Proforma 2) PGI memory test 3) Digit symbol substitution test 4) Color Trail test-1 5) Color Trail test-2 6) Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWA) 7) Addenbrooke’s Cognitive rating scale (ACE-R). After obtaining consent, patients who meet the exclusion and inclusion criteria were enrolled in the study design. Patients who took up for the study were able to understand the nature and purpose of the study. Uncooperative patients and patients with acute psychosis were ruled out from the study. Semi-structured proforma was administered for the patients taken up for the study. Socio-demographic profile as per the proforma was collected. Complete general physical examination and also detailed neurological evaluation were done before the study. All the subjects underwent cognitive assessment which lasted around 90 minutes. All the tests were carried out in a fixed order according to standardized administration procedures in a quiet room. Results:the mean COWA scores at baseline showed significantly higher scores as compared to 24 hrs at P<0.001. These results infer that the mean COWA scores show a difference between first ECT and 1-week post ECT which was highly significant statistically and further the difference between baseline and 1-week post-ECT was highly significant as it shows a significant increase in the scores at a 1-week time interval. P<0.001. Conclusion:From our study it can be concluded that, the ECT course causes rapid cognitive changes, both in the form of impairment as well as improvement. ECT treatment has effects on memory as well as other non-memory cognitive functions. ECT has acute effects on cognitive functions which are evident by changes in the cognitive profile of participating patients seen immediately after the first ECT.