Symptoms and observations: differences in time course during electroconvulsive therapy in geriatric depressed patients.

Electroconvulsive therapy is used for the management of severe and refractory depression across the age spectrum. Treatment is guided by clinical response. However, there may be differences between the time course of improvement in clinical observations and patients' self-report of improvements. We report 4 cases of depression in late life that illustrate this issue. We discuss the potential significance of such differences and the need for research.