Reviews of ECT and Catatonia in Autism, in Psychiatric Clinics of North America

Out on PubMed,in Psychiatric Clinics of North America, are these two related reviews:


Catatonia in Patients with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

    Ghaziuddin N, Andersen L, Ghaziuddin M.    Psychiatr Clin North Am. 2021 Mar;44(1):11-22. doi: 10.1016/j.psc.2020.11.002.    PMID: 33526232 Review.

Use of Electroconvulsive Therapy in Autism.
Park SE, Grados M, Wachtel L, Kaji S.Psychiatr Clin North Am. 2021 Mar;44(1):23-33. doi: 10.1016/j.psc.2020.11.003.PMID: 33526235


These are both scholarly reviews with obviously overlapping content. They are comprehensive and well-referenced.
Neera Ghaziuddin and Lee Wachtel are preeminent child psychiatrists, who have championed the use of ECT in children and adolescents, particularly for catatonia in autism.
In the Park et al. paper, the use of ECT in autism is discussed as exclusively for catatonia (self-injurious behaviors are conceptualized as a form of catatonia), but not targeted for depression,mania or psychosis; the authors state there are no data for those other indications in autism:
Although in neurotypical children ECT has been used in severe mood disorders and schizophrenia spectrum disorders, there are no current data on its use in these disorders in autism, except in the cases, discussed previously, where affective and psychotic illness was present with catatonia.
That is a bit catatonia-centric, IMO, as if those more common indications for ECT could not exist if not co-morbid with catatonia.
In any case, these reviews are welcome additions to the literature, well worth full and careful reads (~30 mins each).






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