Are lobotomies still performed? How about electro-shock therapy?

Answer 1

Electro shock therapy :ECT has undergone a complete image makeover in the last twenty years. It has regained respectability. Many psychiatrists now consider it an efficient way to relieve severe depression or to break a manic cycle for the manic depressive. Its success rate, according to the American Psychiatric Association (APA), is 80%, considerably higher than the 50% to 60% success rate of most antidepressant medications. And according to ECT advocates, it can restore a severely depressed or manic patient to health in half the time it takes medication - - sometimes as little as three weeks to reach a therapeutic level.

lobotomies :
"Most people think psychosurgery, or lobotomy, is not done anymore. Unfortunately, this is not true. In fact, as New York University School of Medicine psychiatry professors Harold I. Kaplan and Benjamin J. Sadock say in their textbook Clinical Psychiatry, published in 1988, "interest in psychosurgical approaches to psychiatric disorders has only recently been rekindled"'

"Between 1939 and 1951, over 18,000 lobotomies were performed in the US, and many more in other countries. It was often used on convicts, and in Japan it was recommended for use on “difficult” children. There are still western countries that permit the use of the lobotomy, although its use has decreased dramatically worldwide. Curiously, the old USSR banned it back in the 1940s on moral grounds!"

There were many successful lobotomies, they are still performed, though the procedure is generally frowned upon"
best answer by faded shado

Answer 2

Lobotome (or leukotomy) was discontinued in the 1990's.
Electro-Shock therapy is still used, although it is a contervesal method of last resort.

Lobotomes, first used by the Egyptians, is a pretty crude and dangerous technique. Electro-Shock therapy is almost as dangerous. I was in the hosptial in 1992 and met a patient that was due to undergoe Electro-Shock Therapy. I don't know the details of here case, what therapies were tried before, and the results. But, it was performed at Walter Reed Hospital, the main hospital for the US Army. This is one of the nation's leading hospitals and is one location to take the President to if he is sick or injured. It is a first class hospital that is currently undergoing a complete rebuilding and update.

Wikipedia
Prefrontal Lobotomy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy
"However, concerns about leukotomy steadily grew, some countries such as Germany and Japan and several US states prohibited it. Leukotomy was legally practiced in controlled and regulated US centers, and in Finland, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Spain, India, Belgium and the Netherlands. The practice had generally ceased by the early 1970s, but some countries continued small scale operations through the late 1980s. In France, 32 lobotomies were performed between 1980 and 1986 according to a IGAS report; about 15 each year in the UK, 70 in Belgium, and about 15 for the Massachusetts General Hospital of Boston."

Electro Shock Therapy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electro-shock_therapy
"ECT was a common psychiatric treatment until the late 20th century, when it fell into disuse as better drug therapies became available for more conditions. It is now reserved for severe cases of clinical depression and bipolar disorder that do not respond to other forms of therapy. When still in common use, ECT was sometimes abused by unethical mental health professionals as a means of punishing and controlling unruly or uncooperative patients. Many people came to view ECT unfavorably after negative depictions of it in several books and films, and the treatment is still controversial."

Answer 3

Well it depends on what you consider a lobotomy. Nowadays the brain is not partially removed from the skull; it is unethical and completely ineffectual at treating mental illness. However, in some epileptic’s part of the brain, the part responsible for the seizures is scanned and found, then it is fried with a laser or removed. These are microscopic pieces though. Although tumors in the brain are also removed by the same method.

Electro-shock therapy is still used by some. It is not as dangerous or horrific as most people believe it to be. Decades ago, before anesthesia was used, patients were tied down and shocks were given and the patient would convulse from the electric shock. This was a gruesome sight of course. Ben Stein, the guy with the repetitive voice that did the Visine commercials had it before in a mental hospital. He claimed that it fried his photographic memory.

Now the procedure is much more humane and life-saving for some that have not responded to medications. Nowadays they administer anesthesia and muscle relaxes so the body doesn’t convulse. Some patients are happy with their treatment others complain about there memory problems.

Answer 4

Lobotomies are kind of still performed, but rarely. For people with severe, debilitating seizures, doctors sometimes separate the two halves of the brain, or remove the non-dominant half.

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is also still performed, certainly more frequently than lobotomies. It is most often used for severe depression that has not responded to medications. Nowadays, patients are given sedation, and usually sleep all the way through it. Since the procedure itself can cause short-term amnesia, the patients frequently don't even remember it.

There might be other indications for both of these procedures that I'm unaware of, but the above are the most common.

Answer 5

Lobotomies are not done in US or any other countries that are not in the dark ages. Electro-shock treatment has changed quite a bit. Now it is done without any sensation of a shock. In fact many people report a feeling of well being during and after treatments. It has been found that mild electrical stimulus will act very much as like a mood enhancing drug.

Answer 6

Electroshock can still be useful. The patient is put under and restrained beforehand. It is actually helpful in some extreme cases, but only as a last resort. The patient is under so it is not painful. We shock people whose hearts have stopped because it helps, if it helps with mental illnesses too, shouldnt it be okay? Lobotomies should not and are not done. The idea of any psychiatric technique should be to help people lead a normal life. If you are lobotomized, you cannot lead a normal life.

Answer 7

Yes its referred to as electro-cunvulsive therpay ECT it is done in severe cases of depression, OCD, and schizophrenia. It is much more humane now. You get anesthesia and very little side effects. it only take 3-4 sessions to see improvemnt and usually last for 10 treatments.

Answer 8

lobotimies are a thing of the past no matter what you read but electro shock therapy is as common as the cold

Answer 9

Lobotomies, no

ECT or shock therapy, yes and not rarely at all. It is still more effective than antidepressants and still very safe (although poorly undserstood thanks to Cuckoo's Nest).

Answer 10

YES...to both, just not in America!