A patient subjected to the practice in Lapinlahti Hospital, Helsinki in the 1950s A few psychiatrists (including Sakel) claimed success rates for<unk>  coma<unk>  of over 80% in the treatment of schizophrenia. A few others argued that it merely accelerated remission in those patients who would undergo remission anyway. The consensus at the time was somewhere in between, claiming a success rate of about 50% in patients who had been ill for less than a year (about double the spontaneous remission rate) with no influence on relapse. Sakel suggested the<unk>  worked by "causing an intensification of the tonus of the parasympathetic end of the autonomic nervous system, by blockading the nerve cell, and by strengthening the anabolic force which induces the restoration of the normal function of the nerve cell and the recovery of the patient." The<unk> <unk> es in general had developed on the erroneous premise that epilepsy and schizophrenia rarely occurred in the same patient. The premise was supported by neuropathologic studies that found a dearth of glia in the brains of schizophrenic patients and a surplus of glia in epileptic brains. These observations led the Hungarian neuropsychiatrist Ladislas Meduna to induce seizures in schizophrenic patients with injections of camphor, soon replaced by pentylenetetrazol (Metrazole). Another theory was that patients were somehow "jolted" out of their mental illness. The hypoglycemia (pathologically low glucose levels) that resulted from ICT made patients extremely restless, sweaty, and liable to further convulsions and "after-shocks". In addition, patients invariably emerged from the long course of treatment "grossly obese". The most severe risks of<unk>  coma<unk>  were death and brain damage, resulting from irreversible or prolonged coma respectively. A study at the time claimed that many of the cases of brain damage were actually<unk> utic improvement because they showed "loss of tension and hostility". Mortality risk estimates varied from about one percent to 4.9 percent. Respected singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt was said to have lost much of his long term memory from this treatment, performed on him for bipolar disorder, preceding a life of substance abuse and depression.
Insulin shock therapy
Glucagon rescue
Target controlled infusion
Reperfusion therapy
Continuous hyperthermic peritoneal perfusion
Activated charcoal cleanse
Infusion therapy
Intra-aortic balloon pump