Towards Optimisation of Electroconvulsive Therapy with a Little Help from Knowledge Management

Abstract

This paper communicates the importance of identifying knowledge to improve medical treatments such as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). The information analysed comes from patients with severe depressive disorders or schizophrenia, and corresponds to measurements of various psychophysiologi- cal parameters taken at different times after the application of electroshock. The paper reports results of applying the KDSM methodology to an Informal Struc- ture Domain, with the presence of very short and repeated serial measures, such as ECT.