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About Electro Shock Treatment I am opposed to Electro Shock Treatment. I want to see it banned on this planet. I once asked a Swedish psychiatrist if she would be willing to receive Electro Shock Treatment. I asked her, because she was trying to defend it. As I asked her, she looked a little scared. She had herself helped in administering Electro Shock Treatment. I understand why she looked scared. I found the following good news today and I wanted to share it with you. Tunedal
Subject:
MEDICARE STOPS FUNDING "MULTIPLE ELECTROSHOCK MEDICARE
STOPS FUNDING "MULTIPLE ELECTROSHOCK CMS
Investigation reveals patients at "greater risk" LOS
ANGELES: As of April 1, 2003, Medicare will cease all national coverage
of
"multiple seizure" electroshock treatments, after an investigation revealed
the practice is unworkable and places patients at risk. The Center
for
Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) conducted the investigation after a
December
2001 report by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found multiple
seizure electroshock had "none of the claimed benefits and many risks,"
including "profound confusional states." The Citizens Commission on
Human
Rights International (CCHR), a psychiatric watchdog that has exposed the
brain-damaging and lethal effects of electroshock, hailed the decision as
a victory for patients' rights. Also
known as multiple monitored ECT (MMECT), Medicare has been paying out $500,000
a year for its use. On February 24 this year, CMS said that Medicare
would no longer cover this practice, stating, "The clinical effectiveness
of multiple-seizure electroconvulsive therapy [ECT] has not been
verified by scientifically controlled studies.studies have demonstrated
an
increased risk of adverse effect.." CMS
also found that in the elderly population, the risk may be "several fold
higher"
than for "younger patients for severe confusion, falls, and cardiorespiratory
complications." The elderly are a key market for ECT. In Texas,
one of the few states that keeps track of shock statistics, 65-year-olds
get 360 percent more ECT than 64-year-olds because Medicare coverage
takes effect at sixty-five. Ms.
Jan Eastgate, the international president of CCHR, says that electroshock
treatment involves "searing the brain with more volts of electricity
than you'll find in your home. Between 180 to 460 volts of electricity
sends a current pulsing through the brain creating a 'grand mal'
seizure,
which is identical to an epileptic fit. The administering psychiatrist
usually looks for a curling up or twitching of the toes to determine
if the shock has 'worked.' Without this sign, multiple electric shocks
have been given until the desired effect is achieved. Today, MMECT can
induce up to eight seizures in one treatment." Electroshock
has always been controversial, considering its origins arose out
of Italian slaughterhouses. In 1938, Dr. Ugo Cerletti, head of the psychiatry
department at the University of Rome, observed how pigs were prepared
for slaughter using electroshock, which eased the job of slitting their
throats. He was inspired, and began experimenting with electroshock on
humans.
Broken bones and fractured vertebrae that resulted from the convulsions
appeared to be of little concern. In
the 1960s, psychiatrists added muscle relaxants to modify the assault on
the
body. Today, the administration of ECT is a $3 billion a year industry in
the United States with more than 100,000 Americans undergoing it, many involuntarily.
Yet, a 2001 Colombia University study found ECT is so ineffective
at ridding patients of their depression that nearly all of those
who receive it relapse within six months of stopping treatment.
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