What is electrotherapy? The mention of electrotherapy conjures up horrific scenes of psychiatric patients being strapped into electric chairs while doctors shock them with electricity. It is no wonder that electrotherapy was once considered a barbaric treatment because it induced convulsive seizures and was sometimes used against the patient’s will. So to this day, electrotherapy is seen by many in society as the “secret weapon” of psychiatric hospitals and a “very damaging to the brain” treatment. Even some internists ask me, “How can you give electroshock to patients?” The horrors of electroshock therapy are a thing of the past. Before administering the treatment, the doctor would make the patient urinate to prevent the patient from urinating due to involuntary muscle contractions. Some patients may suffer from bone fractures due to strong muscle contractions during treatment. Therefore, the patient should be immobilized and protected by the medical staff. When the electric current passes through the patient’s body, the patient’s facial muscles will twitch strongly and uncontrollably, and the eyes will roll upward, the neck will stand backward, and the whole body will shake, much like an epileptic seizure, which is really a miserable feeling. With the development of medical technology and anesthesia methods, modern electroconvulsive therapy is very different from what it used to be. Current electroconvulsive therapy is a modified form of electroconvulsive therapy, also known as non-convulsive electroconvulsive therapy. In this treatment, anesthetics and muscle relaxants are administered to the patient prior to treatment so that no convulsions occur, muscle tonicity and tremors are reduced, and complications such as fractures and joint dislocations are avoided. During treatment, the physician stimulates the patient’s brain with a weak, brief, moderate amount of electric current through an electroconvulsive machine, causing loss of consciousness and generalized convulsions to control psychiatric symptoms. Each electrotherapy session requires only about 30 joules of electricity, which is equivalent to the amount of electricity needed to light a 30-watt light bulb for one second. Patients no longer toss and turn on the table as they did in the past, and health care workers do not have to try to subdue them. Jack Nicholson Nicholson in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and Russell Crowe in “A Beautiful Mind”. Gone are the terrible spasms that Jack Nicholson portrayed in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and Russell Crowe in “A Beautiful Mind”. Many patients who have just undergone electroconvulsive therapy wake up not even believing they have undergone the procedure. Currently, electrotherapy is one of the most commonly used non-pharmacological treatments in psychiatry because of its efficacy, rapid results, and lack of drug side effects. The uniqueness of modern electrotherapy is that it works quickly. Patients are usually treated in one session, and the entire course of treatment takes 6 to 12 sessions, usually every other day, and each session takes 20 minutes. After treatment, the patient is able to wake up from anesthesia quickly and leave within one to two hours. Some patients can even receive complete improvement after one treatment. The treatment is very effective. Especially for patients with severe suicide attempts, rigidity and refusal to eat, severe excitement and agitation, and severe aggressive behavior, electrotherapy can eliminate the symptoms rapidly. High safety. Studies of tens of thousands of patients have shown that electrotherapy is no less safe than antipsychotic drugs, provided that indications and contraindications are strictly controlled. No structural changes in the brain have been found in patients treated with electrotherapy using CT and MRI methods. As with other treatments, electroconvulsive therapy has its own specific side effects and complications. The main common complications of modern modified electroconvulsive therapy are headache, nausea, vomiting and reversible memory loss. Memory loss occurs at a high rate, with foreign studies finding that at least 1/3 of patients report significant memory loss after receiving electroconvulsive therapy. However, the effects of electroconvulsive therapy on memory are generally considered to be limited and usually only temporary, and clinically these symptoms usually improve on their own after treatment without treatment. Modern electroconvulsive therapy has a number of disadvantages in addition to the side effects mentioned above. First, electroconvulsive therapy is complicated and dangerous to implement, requiring general anesthesia and oxygen, which is difficult to carry out in primary hospitals. Second, because of the high requirements of electroconvulsive therapy technology and equipment, so the cost of treatment is also higher. Furthermore, electroconvulsive therapy, like drug therapy, cannot be used once and for all, but must be maintained, otherwise many patients’ conditions will relapse. Therefore, medication or infrequent electrotherapy is generally recommended as a follow-up maintenance treatment for 6 months after electrotherapy. Thus, electrotherapy is a scientific, effective and safe treatment method, but it needs to be strictly controlled by a specialist for indications and contraindications and implemented in a specialist hospital.