ECT ‘has been beneficial to patient’

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) given to a 62-year-old man detained in hospital where he had refused to eat has proven beneficial to him, the High Court has heard.

The man had been refusing food, medication, and was uncommunicative.

Last April, the HSE got High Court permission to force-feed him and administer ECT, which is a treatment for mental illness, under general anaesthesia, in which small electric currents are passed through the brain.