If the device is reclassified a scientific safety investigation of these devices will never take place, and patients will not have the information they need to make an informed choice about the treatment.
On more than one occasion this office has been asked to confirm a state hospital patient's consent to ECT only to determine that the patient did not understand the decision he or she was being asked to make or that other less intrusive treatments had not been tried.
These are reports from people who had ECT in recent years and experienced permanent deficits in memory ability and other cognitive abilities (known as anterograde amnesia).
Disability Rights Mississippi to the proposed ECT device reclassification, 2009.
Maryland Disability Law Center to the FDA on ECT device reclassification, 2009.