Journal
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF GERIATRIC PSYCHIATRY
Volume 24, Issue 7, Pages 547-565Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC
DOI: 10.1016/j.jagp.2016.02.053
Keywords
geriatric; elderly; depression; cognition; ECT; brain stimulation
Categories
Funding
- Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) fellowship award
- Brain and Behavior Research Foundation [22293]
- Brain Canada
- CAMH Foundation
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)
- U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH)
- NIH
- CIHR
- Temerty Family through the CAMH Foundation
- Campbell Research Institute
- Brainsway Ltd.
- Brainsway Inc.
- Ontario Mental Health Foundation
- Brain and Behavior Research Foundation
- Temerty Family
- Grant Family
- Campbell Institute
- Canada Research Chair
- Canadian Foundation for Innovation
- Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care
- Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation
- W. Garfield Weston Foundation
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Objective: Late-life depression (LLD) is known to negatively impact cognition even after remission of mood symptoms. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and newer nonconvulsive electrical and magnetic brain stimulation interventions have been shown to have cognitive effects in patients with neuropsychiatric disorders. Methods: This review systematically assessed the effects of ECT on cognition in LLD. EMBASE, Ovid Medline, and PsycINFO were systematically searched through June 2015. The search was limited to publications from peer-reviewed journals in the English language. Results: A total of 5,154 publications was identified; 318 were reviewed in full text, of which 39 publications related to ECT were included. We focused this review only on ECT because evidence on newer interventions was deemed insufficient for a systematic review. This literature suggests increased rates of interictal and postictal cognitive decline with ECT but no long-term (i.e., 6 months or longer) deleterious effects on cognition. Instead, long-term cognitive outcomes with ECT have been reported as either not changed or improved. This literature favors nondominant unilateral ECT over bilateral ECT for cognition. Conclusion: Published literature on brain stimulation interventions in LLD is mainly limited to ECT. This literature suggests that deleterious effects of ECT in LLD are limited and transient, with better cognitive outcomes with unilateral ECT. There is not enough evidence to fully characterize long-term deleterious effects of ECT or effects of newer brain stimulation techniques on cognition in LLD.
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