The British Journal of Psychiatry 146: 308-311 (1985)
© 1985 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
Short-term cognitive effects of unilateral and bilateral ECT
MA Taylor and R Abrams
We administered an extensive battery of primarily non-memory
neuropsychological tasks to 37 patients with endogenous depression,
randomly assigned to either bilateral (B/ECT) or unilateral (U/ECT)
electroconvulsive therapy. Testing was done prior to therapy and again
shortly after the sixth induced seizure. The two groups did not
significantly differ in cognitive impairment, either before or after
treatment, and within-group cognitive changes following treatment were
small. We conclude that neither B/ECT nor U/ECT substantially worsen
non-memory cognitive performance in depressed patients, yet both result in
significant clinical improvement.