Does concomitant antidepressant therapy enhance response to electroconvulsive therapy?
Aims: To test the hypothesis that compared with placebo, concomitant treatment with nortriptyline or venlafaxine during the ECT course enhances short-term effi cacy without exerting a meaningful effect on adverse effects and reduces the rate of post-ECT relapse, and to test the hypothesis that high-dose RUL ECT is equivalent in effi cacy to moderatedose BL ECT and retains advantages with respect to adverse cognitive effects. This was a prospective, randomized, triplemasked, placebo-controlled study conducted from 2001 through 2005 in three university-based hospitals.