Abstract
Psychiatric syndromes in patients with Parkinson's disease are well documented. Clinical de-pression is present in approximately 40% of these patients. Several drugs are effective at the beginning. However, they are associated with numerous side effects includig psychosis. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has been reported to be helpful in many patients with Parkinson's disease who re-ceived this therapy for a variety of psychiatric syndromes. We reported the medical record of 5 patients with Parkinson's disease who received modified electroconvulsive therapy (mECT) for psychiatric syndromes between 1995 and 1998. The mECT improved not only the depressed mood but also the motor impairment in Parkinson's disease. After mECT, there was marked relief from the depression in four patients. There was no symptomatic change in one patients. The mECT is useful in the treatment of other psychiatric symptoms, delusion, hallucination, confusion. We found sig-nificant improvement in motor function in five patients. Our results support previous reports on the safety and efficacy of using ECT to treat psychiatric symptoms and motor impairment in patients with Parkinson's disease. The authors conclude that the therapeutic utility of mECT should be evaluated in many patients with Parkinson's disease.
