ECT Handbook (3rd edn), The

Edited by Jonathan Waite and Andrew Easton

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Price: £45.00 College members' price: £40.50 Published: May 2013 Format: Paperback Number of pages: 288 ISBN: 9781908020581

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This presents the latest clinical guidelines on the prescription and practical administration of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). It clarifies the place of ECT in contemporary practice and reviews the evidence for its efficacy. The ECT Handbook is an essential reference manual for all psychiatrists, for anaesthetists and nurses who work in ECT clinics, for everyone professionally involved in caring for patients for whom ECT may be recommended, and for second-opinion appointed doctors working for the Care Quality Commission.   

• Substantially revised to take account of new research.
• Covers issues of capacity and consent.
• New chapters on the mode of action of ECT, cognitive adverse effects, dental effects, other brain stimulation techniques and patient and carer perspectives.
• New evidence of the benefits and risks of unilateral v. bilateral electrode placement.
• Reflects changes in mental health and mental capacity legislation since the second edition.

Readership:
All psychiatrists who prescribe ECT and practitioners who administer it (e.g. psychiatrists, anaesthetists and nurses who work in ECT clinics).

About the editors:
Dr Jonathan Waite – Consultant Psychiatrist, Queens Medical Centre, Nottingham.
Dr Andrew Easton – Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist, Newsam Centre, Seacroft Hospital, Leeds.

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Contents

Abbreviations

List of figures, tables and boxes

List of contributors

Preface - by Jonathan Waite and Andrew Easton

Introduction: the role of ECT in contemporary psychiatry

Chapters

1. Mechanism of action of ECT
2. The ECT suite
3. Anaesthesia for ECT
4. ECT prescribing and practice
5. Psychotropic drug treatment during and after ECT
6. Monitoring a course of ECT
7. Non-cognitive adverse effects of ECT
8. Cognitive adverse effects of ECT
9. Dental issues related to ECT
10. Training, supervision and professional development: achieving competency
11. Nursing guidelines for ECT
12. Inspection of ECT clinics
13. Other brain stimulation treatments
14. The use of ECT in the treatment of depression
15. The use of ECT in the treatment of mania
16. The use of ECT in the treatment of schizophrenia and catatonia
17. The use of ECT in neuropsychiatric disorders
18. The use of ECT in people with intellectual disability
19. Safe ECT practice in people with a physical illness
20. ECT for older adults
21. The use of ECT as continuation or maintenance treatment
22. Consent, capacity and the law
23. Patients’ and carers’ perspectives on ECT – a literature review

Appendices

1. Out-patient declaration form
2. ECT competencies for doctors
3. Example of a job description for an ECT nurse specialist
4. Example of a job description for an ECT nurse/ECT coordinator
5. Information for patients and carers
6. Example of a consent form
7. Useful contacts                                                                                                           
8. Example of a certificate of incapacity                                                                

Index