An unhappy or depressed young person is not in a position to make such a decision. Parents of distressed children are too often in conflict with them to make well thought out decisions for them concerning drastic psychiatric treatments. Furthermore, there are no controlled clinical trials to justify ECT for young people. Common sense also dictates that it is a bad idea to give head trauma to young persons whose brains are in the process of rapidly changing and growing. Obtained informed consent provided by a patient advocate.
Patients often realize during the treatment that their mental functioning is being severely harmed.
Doctors too often take advantage of their helpless condition to continue the treatment against the patient's will. Require state-wide data reporting for all ECT cases. Advocates have fought these requirements because they disclose patterns of abuse, for example, concerning the disproportionately large number of elderly women who have no one to advocate for them. The follow up should include at the least reports of death, cause of death, additional hospitalizations, and causes of hospitalizations. Once again, advocates have fought these requirements.