Abstract:
Is Australia still a victim of the delusions of psychiatry?
She is a 97-year-old female. She lived alone, we are told, in ‘an inner-city flat’. The government provided her with weekly housework assistance, and her nephew prepared her meals every day. She presented at the hospital expressing ‘delusional ideas of worthlessness, guilt and poverty’. She felt she did not deserve to eat or drink. She was agitated and dishevelled. She was unable to give informed consent to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). The Mental Health Review Tribunal made the decision for her and she received an order for treatment with ECT up to three times a week. After the fourth round of treatment she suffered a ‘significant adverse event’ when she fell out of bed and fractured her femur, necessitating surgery. The doctors were unsure if this was related to ‘nocturnal confusion post-ECT’. She received surgery for the fracture and then ECT resumed. After surgery she was only moderately depressed, and ‘reportedly enjoying her meals and participating in social interaction on the ward’.
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