Lobotomy is one of the blackest moments in medicine's history of lobotomy. Brain surgery initially celebrated as miraculous therapy for the mentally ill soon turned into a discredited method for patient destruction. Learning about the history of lobotomy, lobotomy procedure, and lobotomy risks and complications informs us about how much farther the world has come in psychiatric medicine and why current lobotomy alternatives are more desperately needed now than ever.

What is Lobotomy?

Lobotomy was a form of brain surgery that severs or destroys pathways in the front of the brain named the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is responsible for personality, decision-making, and thought patterns. Lobotomy was the lobotomy procedure that was used to alter behavior and emotion in people with extreme mental illness.

Psychiatry's lobotomy started with the invention of the procedure by Portuguese physician António Egas Moniz in the 1930s. He was certain that lobotomy for mental illness could be treated by severing nerve connections between the front of the brain and others. It was believed that it would get rid of abnormal behavior and thought.

The prefrontal lobotomy and frontal lobotomy were fad procedures, particularly in America. They were advocated by Dr. Walter Freeman and also created a simpler procedure known as the "ice pick lobotomy." This could be performed in ordinary physician's offices, and due to this, it spread extremely rapidly during the 1940s and 1950s.

What Includes The Lobotomy Procedure?

The lobotomy procedure was modified many times as doctors attempted to make it a smoother operation. All of them, though, involved destruction of brain tissue in the frontal area.

  • Classic Prefrontal Lobotomy: The initial treatment involved drilling holes in the cranium. Physicians used a specialized cutting instrument known as a leucotome to sever white matter fibers that connected the prefrontal cortex with the rest of the brain. Surgeons used sweeping strokes to destroy as many connections as they could.
  • Transorbital Lobotomy: Dr. Freeman developed this "ice pick" method that did not include drilling into the skull. He utilized a sharp object and inserted it through the eye socket, across the eyeball, and into the brain. He would insert it back and forth to kill brain tissue. It was a procedure that only lasted for minutes and was performed with local anesthesia.
  • Subcaudate Tractotomy: This next intervention was aimed at individual brain circuits using more sophisticated surgical techniques. It tried to minimize the mass destruction of previous psychosurgery history operations.
Most operations were carried out on patients with serious depression, schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, and other mental illnesses. The lobotomy success rate was mostly evaluated by how peaceful and controllable patients became instead of actual improvement in their mental health.

Risks and Effects of Lobotomy

The lobotomy side effects were catastrophic and in many cases permanent. Awareness of such lobotomy risks and complications explains why the procedure was later abandoned.

  • Immediate Body Risks: The patients had to undergo intense surgical complications such as intracranial hemorrhage, seizure, infection, and death. The primitiveness of initial techniques made these dangers incredibly high.
  • Personality Changes: The most serious lobotomy side effects were complete changes in personality. Patients generally lost the capacity for feeling or expression of emotion, imagination, or close relationships. They most often became childish, lacking responsibility for themselves.
  • Damage to Thinking: Frontal lobotomy often caused serious damage to thinking. Patients had difficulty in remembering, concentrating, and problem-solving. Many could not work or take care of themselves.
  • Emotional Blunting: Although the treatment may reduce agitation or anxiety, it would generally dampen all emotion. Patients became emotionally flat, and they could not feel joy, love, or even proper fear.
  • Physical Complications: Seizure disorders, motor impairment, and speech and coordination impairments were long-term consequences of lobotomy. Some patients needed lifetime care.
  • The lobotomy recovery process after lobotomy was incomplete or impossible in most instances. Unlike with other surgeries, brain damage by lobotomy was permanent and irreversible.

Read More: 8 Silent Symptoms of Brain Tumor that You Need to Know


Ethical Abuses of Lobotomy

The primary lobotomy controversy surrounding lobotomy concerns gross ethical abuse in its extensive use. These problems ultimately questioned why lobotomy was banned in most locations.

  • Lack of Informed Consent: The majority of patients and families were not well-informed about the lobotomy risks and complications. Physicians used to introduce it as a harmless, straightforward operation without discussing permanent personality alterations.
  • Targeting Vulnerable Populations: Lobotomy for mental illness was inappropriately used over minorities, females, and low-income patients. Procedures were performed with many of them to render the patients easier to handle instead of assisting them in recovering health.
  • Shortage of Scientific Evidence: The lobotomy success rate was never scientifically explored. Physicians based their assessments on subjective, not scientific, measurements of patient improvement.
  • Misuse of Power: A number of physicians performed hundreds of lobotomies with minimal control. The simplicity of the transorbital method caused assembly-line procedures with minimal evaluation of individual patients.
  • Alternative Therapies Neglected: Various beneficial medications and therapies were routinely available but not attempted before the decision to have a prefrontal lobotomy. The operation became a first option instead of a last alternative.
These failures of ethics in the past history resulted in more stringent medical codes and laws of informed consent to safeguard patients now.

Modern Alternatives to Lobotomy

  • Lobotomy today is now practically unheard of, having been supplanted by safe and effective lobotomy alternatives that treat mental illness without damaging the brain.
  • Drugs for Psychiatry: Antidepressants, antipsychotics, and mood stabilizers used today can successfully treat symptoms previously meriting lobotomy in psychiatry. These drugs stabilise the brain chemicals instead of killing off brain tissue.
  • Psychotherapy: Talk therapies of several types, such as cognitive-behavioural therapy and psychoanalysis, educate patients to cope with and comprehend their mental illnesses. These treatments address the causes instead of the symptoms.
  • Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT): Newer ECT is much safer than the earliest lobotomy surgery. Modern ECT employs controlled electrical stimulation to cure extreme depression and other illnesses with few side effects and no long-term brain damage.
  • Deep Brain Stimulation: It is the new method that uses implanted electrodes to stimulate areas of the brain. Unlike lobotomy, it's not only reversible but adjustable, and so doctors can change treatment as needed.
  • Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation: It is a non-surgical treatment that uses magnetic fields to activate brain activity. It can treat depression and other diseases without surgery or permanent alteration.
  • Comprehensive Care Programs: Modern psychiatric treatment combines a number of approaches, including medication, therapy, social support, and changing lifestyle. This multi-pronged approach cures the whole person instead of merely assaulting brain tissue.
These lobotomy alternatives have proven superior and safer than the old psychosurgeries. They are curative, not merely remedial.

Conclusion

The background of lobotomy is a cautionary tale of the necessity for evidence-based medicine and patient rights. While lobotomy in psychiatry was revolutionary at one point, its gruesome lobotomy side effects and ethical violations demonstrate the importance of rigorous scientific analysis before unveiling new treatments.

Learning why lobotomy was banned makes us value medical protection today and psychiatric treatment past. The ethics scandal of lobotomy controversy prompted tighter ethical codes, improved informed consent procedures, and increased experimentation with medical treatment.

Modern lobotomy alternatives bring in hope and healing without the devastation that was caused by the history of lobotomy. Lobotomy today interventions maintain patient dignity while successfully curing mental illnesses. The psychosurgery history continues to teach us, and that is what ensures the search for healing through proper lobotomy recovery methods is no longer purchased at this abhorrent human expense.

Please book an appointment with the Best Neurosurgeon in Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad, and all major cities of Pakistan through InstaCare, or call our helpline at 03171777509 to find the verified doctor for your disease.