MUSCLE TONE / MOVEMENT
13. Forster, Sigmund, Post, Bernard, S., and Benton, Joseph G. Preliminary observations on electrosleep. Archives of Physical and Medical Rehabilitation. 44:8189, 1963.
Device: A device was fabricated, 20 Hz, 0.2 - 0.3 mS, 0.5 - 5 mA, rectangular pulses
This study was designed to test the effects of CES for inducing sleep, and as usual, had variable results. They did find that whether or not patients went to sleep, "there is a clinically noticeable effect of electrosleep upon muscle spasticity in patients with hemiplegia and paraplegia and upon muscle spasm in traumatic injuries such as low back syndromes." These results were confirmed with EMG readings in their 6 normal and 17 clinical pts. There were no controls so the effects of lying supine during an average of 3.56 sessions were not screened out. Although as current amplitude was increased to 20 volts a feeling of slight dizziness approaching a headache was noted, the authors concluded that the technic appears to be entirely safe. Follow-up of pts up to 1 year after treatment has not revealed any harmful effects. The authors suggested that CES may be a potentially valuable technic in the management of certain pts undergoing rehabilitation.
32. Magora, Florella, Beller, A., Aladjemoff, L., Magora, A., and Tannenbaum, J. Observations on electrically induced sleep in man. British Journal of Anesthesiology. 37:480491, 1965.
Device: 100 Hz, 10 - 100 Hz, 1 - 10 mS, 0.4 - 5 mA, square pulses, cathodes over orbits or
forehead, anodes over mastoids
The authors were studying CES to determine what it took to put a patient to sleep. They varied hertz, amplitude, pulse width and the like, performing 65 experiments. The subjects were healthy volunteers, 5 females and 10 males with ages ranging from 30 - 45 years, 2 pts with Parkinson's disease (a 62 year old female and a 82 year old male), and 1 male, 65, with dystonia musculorum. All subjects were advised to refrain from taking any drugs 12 hours prior to the experiments. In a group of 7 healthy subjects, the 2 pts with Parkinson's, and the 1 with dystonia musculorum, sleep did occur in most of the experiments as measured by objective criteria (respiration, EEG, EMG). An unexpected finding was that the involuntary movements in the pts with Parkinson's and dystonia musculorum were changed in character during the passage of current, and eventually completely eliminated, as evidenced by clinical and EMG observations. Sleep was not induced in a second group of 13 healthy individuals, although in 7 a definite change was obvious consisting of lack of blinking, preference for eyes closed, passiveness, and disruption of the idea pattern obvious in conversation. On questioning, after the current was discontinued, these subjects had no evaluation of the lapsed time and stressed that while the current was on they felt detached from their surroundings and had an agreeable feeling throughout the experiment. No ill effects were observed after repeated experiments in the same and different individuals.
58. Smith, Ray B., Burgess, A.E., Guinee, V.J., and Reifsnider, L.C. A curvilinear relationship between alcohol withdrawal tremor and personality. Journal of Clinical Psychology. 35(l):199203, 1979.
Device: Neurotone 101, 100 Hz, 2 mS, <1.5 mA, electrodes below each ear
53 male alcoholic pts (mean of 44 years old) who were withdrawing from heavy drinking (mean years' drinking 9.57) were monitored using the Lafayette Instrument Company's Steadiness Tester, hole type, Stop Clock, 1/100 second, and Tone Response hand tremor test along with the MMPI before and after 40 minutes of CES. All pts had been withdrawing for 96 hours or less, and were receiving Librium 25 mg t.i.d., and Dalmain 30 mg at bedtime. 5 pts whose tremor score did not vary more than 1 full second were discarded from the study because the reaction time of the experimenter who controlled the on/off switch on the tremor apparatus was found to vary within this limit. In keeping with an inverted Ucurve theory of responsiveness to CES, high stress pts who tremored very little initially, tremored more following CES, while low stress pts who tremored more initially, tremored less following CES. This could be a major source of confusion in the typical linear statistical analysis involved in CES research. The data fit the researchers' original hypothesis that withdrawing alcoholics would tremor less as their internal stress increased beyond a certain point, as indicated by MMPI score elevations. This may explain the somewhat disconcerting finding that sometimes as few as 80% of known alcoholics tremor during withdrawal, a response heretofore thought of as a diagnostic of the addiction process by many researchers. Drug therapy alone did not alter the stress-tremor relationships found. No side effects were reported.