Mothers Day and ECT

Home cooked pancakes with berries :)

It was so nice to be able to have mothers day at home :) After a lovely morning run in the cool autumn weather Nicole came around and i made pancakes for breakfast which was complete with berries and organic maple syrup... yum! We gave mum our gifts and i was so happy the dress i picked for mum fit her, i love the colours and the style it suits mum well, i look forward to some pictures of it in Paris when mum, dad and pop go very soon! We had a nice trip down to the beach with dad and the puppies and enjoyed the misty sea with some yoga poses and leaps too :) Then it was about time for me to head back to Perth.

Pancakes cooking away :) 

                                                                                

Yoga on the rocks! 

Happy parents and puppies walking along the beach

Mum's looking lovely in her mothers day dress :)

 Back at Graylands today i felt like i was back to actually learning about psychiatry with our consultant and got to write in patients notes and be helpful :) Our registrar was on the list for supervising Electroconvulsive therapy this week so i got to see my first ECT on a patient! It is used to treat a range of mental illnesses such as severe depression, catatonia and some forms of mania and schizophrenia. The treatment induces controlled seizures in the patient by placing small electrodes at specific locations on the head. It has a lot of stigma attached to it mostly by the fact that seizures are regarded in society as an illness and damaging to the body. ECT is in fact a very effective treatment for mental illnesses which are particularly severe and/or unresponsive to medications. 
A series of brief, low frequency electrical pulses prompt a convulsion. The patient is under anaesthesia before and a muscle relaxant reduces the intensity of muscular spasms. There is in actual fact less harm having ECT medication than the psychiatric drugs. Common possible outcomes include short term memory loss, nausea and a headache which may last for a day or two. Whereas psychiatric medications can cause extra-pyramidal symptoms such as Parkinsonian tremor, muscle rigidity and a shuffled gait, increased prolactin and weight gain (particularly the olanzapine baby!) and of course sedation to name the more common side effects. There are risks associated with general anesthesia as in any operation but the benefits outweigh the risks by far. In some patients this is the only treatment option left. The process itself was so interesting yet so brief, the convulsions only lasted about 10 seconds if that and the machine monitors the patients brain activity levels... i need to look into how to read EEGs now! But that was one psychiatric experience i can tick from the list of my 'must see'!