Mubashar Shah, Chooni Lal, Zafar Haider, Mobeen Ikram, Muhammad Arif Khan.
Electrophysiological Changes After Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) Under Propofol.
Khyber Med Uni Med J Jan ;8(2):88-90.

OBJECTIVE: To find out the electrophysiological changes including pulse, blood pressure, Oxygen saturation and ECG after electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) under Propofol General Anaesthesia (GA). METHODS: Fifty patients with Depression who underwent ECT were studied. All patients were anesthetized using propofol. They were stratified according to electrophysiological changes including SPAO2 , pulse and blood pressure at 60, 90 and 120 seconds after a course of 6 sessions of ECTs. Oxygen saturation was measured using a pulse oximeter. RESULTS: The age of the patients ranged from 18-60 years and mean age was 45±12.02.The ranges of oxygen saturations recorded before ECT was 96-100%. It was 94-97% at 60 sec, 90-92% at 90 sec, 95-98% at 120 seconds. There was initial decrease in diastolic pressure from pre - ECT (77±07) to 72±05 at 60 sec followed by increase of 73±05 at 90 sec and again coming to 74±05 at 120 sec, whereas in case of systolic pressure initial decrease of 117±06 at 60 sec, 114±04 at 90 sec and 116±07 at 120 sec. There was a decrease in mean pulse from 77±4.64 (pre - ECT) to 73±2.87 at 60 sec, 74±4.02 at 90 sec and maintaining at 74±3.52 at 120 sec after ECT procedure. Out of 50 patients, 3 (6%) developed bradycardia and 2 (4%) had ST-segment flattening at 60 seconds. CONCLUSION: ECT under Propofol is very safe modality of treatment for patients with depressive illness and it gives much better and stable hemodynamic changes with rapid recovery from anesthesia.

PakMediNet -Pakistan's largest Database of Pakistani Medical Journals - http://www.pakmedinet.com