Word: hartmann
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...Surgeon General's report argues that "there are virtually no absolute health contraindications" for electroshock. It notes that psychiatrists have revised their technique for delivering the electricity in the past generation so that less power is needed and, consequently, fewer side effects result. For his part, Hartmann says he has often gone to work around noon after morning electroshock sessions. "The people in the office are just agog that you can add two and two, that you're not drooling," he says. "But my concentration was actually improved, and I felt so much better." Hartmann says the memory problems...
...when performed properly, psychiatrists say, electroshock is simple, safe and looks a lot more boring than its cinematic counterpart. Curtis Hartmann, 47, a Westfield, Mass., lawyer who has received about 100 electroshocks since 1976 to help control his bipolar illness, knows the procedure well. Hartmann fasts the night before, a routine practice before general anesthesia. He leaves his home around 4 a.m. and drives to nearby Holyoke Hospital. He goes to the second floor and turns left toward the short-stay surgery unit. His body is prepared for electroshock in three ways: an anesthesiologist puts him to sleep; a chemical...
...these steps are taken to protect him from the physical side effects of having a seizure, which is what happens when the electrodes are attached to Hartmann's head and electricity courses into him. For reasons no one quite understands--just as no one is precisely sure how all antidepressants work or why some people improve with good old-fashioned talk therapy and others don't--the seizure is key. Hartmann explains it this way: "The seizure just kind of dynamites the depression out of my brain somehow...
...Hartmann quotes that line in his fascinating, not yet published memoir, Life as Death. He knows some people don't respond to electroshock, and he understands the risk he takes when he undergoes it (his most recent treatment was last summer; he currently takes medications). A tiny number of patients die: the National Institute of Mental Health says the figure is 1 in 10,000, about the same as any procedure involving anesthesia. Antishock activists cite Texas statistics from the mid-'90s, saying about 1 in 320 electroshock patients died in the two weeks after treatment, though the deaths weren...
...Ronda Hartmann's 8-year-old daughter Aurelia said the man who made the balloon characters was her favorite...