Electroconvulsive therapy in patients with late-onset psychoses and structural brain changes.

The authors describe the brain magnetic resonance imaging results and the clinical courses of three patients with late-onset psychoses who were treated with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Consistent with previous work, preexisting structural brain changes were present in all three patients. The two patients with the more severe structural changes (lateral ventricular enlargement and large deep-white-matter hyperintensities) failed to respond to ECT. In addition, all three patients had caudate hyperintensities and developed a prolonged interictal ECT-induced delibrium. These observations are also consistent with previous studies that have reported that patients with caudate hyperintensities may be at an increased risk for developing an interictal delirum during a course of ECT.