Venkata Subramanian Ramakrishnan1, Young Kwang Kim2, Wanda Yung3, Prashanth Mayur4. 1. Staff Specialist-Cumberland Hospital, Australia. 2. Psychiatry Advanced Trainee-Cumberland Hospital, Australia. 3. VMO Anaesthetist-Cumberland Hospital, Australia. 4. Senior Staff Specialist and Medical Superintendent-Cumberland Hospital and Clinical Associate Professor Discipline of Psychiatry, University of Sydney, Australia.
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: The recent and ongoing COVID-19 pandemic outbreak has placed a huge burden on healthcare systems worldwide. This emergent situation applies invariably to mental health services, and policy makers have issued new directives to adequately deal with this crisis. The COVID-19 outbreak poses special challenges to the administration of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) since the anaesthetic induction is an aerosol-generating process. The report provides a narrative account of modifications to the ECT practice at a tertiary care psychiatric hospital to mitigate the risk of COVID-19 transmission. CONCLUSION: We emphasise two main modifications: use of personal protective equipment (PPE) during the ECT and modifications in the anaesthetic procedure to mitigate potential transmission.
OBJECTIVE: The recent and ongoing COVID-19 pandemic outbreak has placed a huge burden on healthcare systems worldwide. This emergent situation applies invariably to mental health services, and policy makers have issued new directives to adequately deal with this crisis. The COVID-19 outbreak poses special challenges to the administration of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) since the anaesthetic induction is an aerosol-generating process. The report provides a narrative account of modifications to the ECT practice at a tertiary care psychiatric hospital to mitigate the risk of COVID-19 transmission. CONCLUSION: We emphasise two main modifications: use of personal protective equipment (PPE) during the ECT and modifications in the anaesthetic procedure to mitigate potential transmission.
Entities:
Keywords:
COVID-19; aerosol-generating procedure; electroconvulsive therapy; personal protective equipment