How long should someone be getting ect treatments? is once a week for 4 years too much? not helping and they can't remember much anymore.

ECT therapy??: I assume you mean electro-convulsive therapy. It used to be used to treat severe depression but I thought that its use had been abandoned some time ago. One of its known side effects is memory loss. There are good drugs for patients with severe depression. And 4 years without success seems to me like a long enough trial to call it a failure if there has been no improvement .

Depression: ECT is very useful for people with resistant depression, or for people who cant take medication due to side effects or medication interactions. It is up to the patient and the treating physician to determine if there is a better treatment or whether it should be withdrawn.