Electroconvulsive therapy (TEC) is probably best known as electroshock.
It is a therapeutic technique that consists in inducing convulsions in the patient, following the passage of an electric current through the brain.
TEC has been used since the early 1930s to treat psychiatric conditions, such as major depression. However - despite its effectiveness - this technique frightened patients as it caused pain.
Today, electroconvulsive therapy has improved a lot. First a muscle relaxant is administered and then the treatment is performed under anesthesia. Electrodes are placed in specific points of the skull in order to release the electrical impulses; these stimulations generate short-term convulsions (about thirty seconds).
Patients who undergo this technique do not consciously feel the electrical stimulation and therefore feel no pain.
In order to obtain a complete therapeutic effect, however, numerous electroshock sessions must be practiced (generally, with a frequency of 2-3 times a week).
TEC can be very useful for the treatment of patients in whom the drugs have failed, for the treatment of patients who develop resistance to drug therapies, and for the treatment of elderly patients who may be more susceptible to the onset of side effects than a "possible drug therapy.
