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Hello, Leanne and Michael -

Your father/FIL's symptoms sound a lot like my mother's at one point.
She was hospitalized for one month and received three (unilateral, if I
remember correctly) ECT treatments per week.  The doctor warned us that
she would need regular follow-up and, sure enough, when we/he/nursing
home let it slide, she got worse again.  We found that a minimum of once
monthly was necessary.

I'd seen literature that said follow-up with clozarine(Clorazil) is also
imperative. In the meantime, olanzapine (zyprexa) had gone on the market
(generally fewer side effects than clorazil), so that's what Mom took.
She'd been on a variety of antidepressants of the prozac type as well.

Temporarily, the ECT helped Mom both physically and emotionally.  But
she was already 75 when the treatments started, and her pd had
progressed rapidly, and all the negative-thinking and passive aspects of
her personality
had blossomed over the last couple of years.  Being younger, your father
has a much better chance, I think, of benefiting from meds and/or ECT.
Is his neurologist working with the psychiatrists?  We found it VITAL
that they cooperate and insisted upon it, althought the shrink had his
nose put out
of joint when the neuro's nurse-clinician called him!

If you tell us more about your father's current meds and maybe past
meds' history, you will probably get more specific instructions.  My
thoughts will be with you; this is definitely the worst aspect of the
disease, as far as I am concerned ...

Mary Rack