Electroconvulsive therapy for catatonia in autistic spectrum disorders

Abstract

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is established as a treatment of catatonia. Recent studies have shown that catatonia can occur in patients with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD). ECT is indicated when patients are unresponsive to other treatments and required rapid improvement. In addition, maintenance ECT is often performed for recurrence prevention of catatonia. Here we describe a patient with autism in her 40s who presented severe catatonia and for whom ECT was effective against catatonia and recurrence prevention.