Woman finds depression relief with electroconvulsive therapy at UW Hospital

WASHINGTON STATE — Sylvie Sallquist has struggled with severe depression and anxiety since she was a child, and this is her latest attempt to find relief.

“We’re at the UW Neuromodulation and I’m about to get an ECT treatment,” Sallquist explained.

ECT – or electroconvulsive therapy – sends electric currents through the brain, essentially rewiring to better control mood and emotions. The patient goes under general anesthesia, and the currents provoke a seizure. The seizure lasts than a minute, providing a burst of electrical activity.

Dr. Randall Espinoza is Medical Director of the Center for Neuromodulation at UW Northwest Hospital. He said ECT is not only effective, but it’s one of the safest treatments in all of medicine.

“Neuromodulation comprises a set of treatments that utilize forms of energy to modulate neuronal function. We have various therapies currently approved, including electrical convulsive therapy, transcranial magnetic stimulation, and vagal nerve simulation,” Espinoza said. We’re still investigating the mechanisms of how ECT works. Part of that understanding is informed by our view of depression, which now is as a disorder of neurocircuits different parts of the brain are not connected well. They’re not communicating well. A treatment like ECT helps the brain to remodel, to reform those connections so that it now communicates appropriately.”

“Think of it like your desktop or your laptop,” he said. “When the screen freezes, you have to shut things down. And then when you turn things back up, everything is back working.”

But it carries a sigma because of how shock therapy is depicted in movies.

“That’s one of the unfortunate lingering misconceptions that contribute to the stigma around ECT,” Espinoza said. “Still over 35, 40 years, the depiction of ECT or shock therapy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest remains stuck in the public mind of what ECT is. Various studies since that time and ongoing, demonstrate that the depiction of ECT in the media and now online contributes to the misconceptions of what ECT is and what it does.”

Sallquist felt an immediate difference after her first treatment.

“I noticed a difference in increase in appetite, increase in energy and after the second one, a huge increase in mood. Life just got easy again, which has been incredible.”

Another form of neuromodulation is called transcranial magnetic stimulation – or TMS. Instead of electric currents, it uses magnetic energy, and the patient is awake for the procedure. CJ Hasse turned to TMS as a last ditch effort to pull out of severe depression.

“For about two and a half weeks or so, I was starting to get rid of things,” Hasse said. “My couch and all that, and I had a plan. I knew when the train was coming, I knew the whole thing.”

She wanted to end her life. Hass said TMS was like pulling a heavy blanket off and seeing the light. She’s back to her passions of writing and artwork. Most TMS patients have treatment 3 to 5 times a week, up to 40 treatments.

Hasse was initially skeptical. “I was I was like, oh come on people this machine is not gonna do diddly for me. I didn’t have faith in it at first,” Hasse said. “And then I gradually, you know, you all of a sudden have a change of pace where, okay I can get up and do this. I can get there and I can do this because it is helping and I am moving forward.”

At her final TMS treatment, the staff at UW Medicine gave her a card, and she walked out in a way that felt impossible just months ago — with a smile and a laugh.

“I don’t laugh very often, but when I heard my first laugh, it freaked me out,” Hasse said. “When you hear your own self, when you’re not depressed, laugh, it’s just a miracle.”