Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has a negative effect on word fluency shortly after a course of ECT. This improves during follow-up. Elderly have a greater improvement compared to younger patients. More precise the scores on word fluency tests were significantly influenced by age. The effect of age changed from a negative influence directly after ECT to a positive effect during follow-up. The negative effect for older patients is what you expect. The change to a more positive effect is unexpected.
What is word fluency
Word fluency is tested by a simple test, the word fluency test, right. In this research , patients were tested before ECT, shortly after ECT and at 3 months and 12 months after discharge. The word fluency tests consist of naming as much animals and professions as possible during 1 minute.
What is Semantic Memory
Semantic memory is tested with the word fluency tests. Semantic memory are all those acquired facts, concepts and skill you gather during your life. We can learn new facts or concepts from our experiences with semantic memory. Episodic memory represents our memory of events and experiences in a serial form from which we can reconstruct events that took place at a given point in our lives.
Long-term memory
Semantic memory and episodic memory are both part of long term memory.
Why do elderly regain their vocabulary, their semantic memory better than younger patients?
We don’t know. This effect could be due to more life experiences or more mental reserve. Another possible explanation could be that stimulation of the neural system results in restorative plasticity, especially in the elderly. Because elderly are at a disadvantage for disturbances of other kinds of memory (such as short-term memory), restorative plasticity may adhere to specific brain regions.
Article discussed:
Changes in Everyday and Semantic Memory Function After Electroconvulsive Therapy for Unipolar Depression.
PMID: 17804988
Authors: Schat A, van den Broek WW, Mulder PG, Birkenhäger TK, van Tuijl R, Murre JM
Journal: J ECT, 23 (3): 153-157, 2007
You can read the whole article on my PBWIKI
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Hi, I’m looking for some images of ECT that are a little less scary than the ones I’ve found so far. The one you have here is great! Would I be able to use it to accompany an article about ECT on another site? You can contact me at art@health.com. thanks! -isa