DSeid, I should nevertheless say this: if your wife chose ECT and reports that she is glad that she did so, that it enabled her to function when nothing else would, I support her right to pursue whatever measures she finds necessary.
I also am libertarian (or anarchist) enough to think a procedure should not be illegal simply because it is dangerous, so I support the psychiatrists' right to provide the treatment.
However, it should only be administered under a voluntary basis (none of this "poor so-and-so doesn't understand her own condition well enough to know what she needs"); and that voluntary consent should be fully informed, which means that the person considering it should have full clinical and post-mortem study data pertaining to risks, common side effects, short-term and long-term statistical prognosis, mortality and morbidity, and so on.
Original SDMB thread - Shock treatment
See my next post on this same thread
See my previous post on this same thread