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Max Fink, MD
State University of New York at Stony Brook School of Medicine

JAMA. 1988;260(10):1405.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

A letter by Kushnir¹ testifies to the resolution of a depressive disorder in a 102-year-old woman by three drug trials and 40 days of treatment. It is unclear why the physician eschewed the use of electroconvulsive therapy in such a case when the first drug trial failed. The successful and safe use of electroconvulsive therapy in elderly depressed patients, including those with syndromes of pseudodementia, is well documented.^2-6 The risks of repeated drug trials, and the use of new drug treatments with limited experience, does a disservice to elderly patients who often are more rapidly and more safely treated by modified electroconvulsive therapy than by antidepressant drugs. . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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