Shock and Awe is a tactic based on the use of overwhelming power and spectacular displays of force to paralyze an enemy.
Now the psychiatric industry is introducing electrical “stimulation” of children’s brains as a socially acceptable gradient to just plain shocking them into good behavior.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved on April 19, 2019 a medical device for so-called attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The prescription-only device, called the Monarch external Trigeminal Nerve Stimulation (eTNS) System from NeuroSigma, is for patients ages 7 to 12 years old who are not currently taking prescription ADHD drugs. It was originally developed at the University of California, Los Angeles, to reduce epileptic seizures. Research continues on using eTNS for epilepsy, depression, migraine, PTSD, and ADHD.
This device delivers an electric current to the brain (through the V1 branch of the 5th cranial nerve) with an electrode taped to the forehead. It costs about $900 to start, with additional costs for more of the electrode patches which are only used once each. It is not currently reimbursed by insurance.
While the exact mechanism of how eTNS is supposed to work is not known, one physical effect is apparently to increase blood flow in certain areas of the brain and decrease it in others. They recommend using it daily for up to four weeks before any significant changes are observed; we could not find any information about long-term effects or whether any changes are observed after treatment is stopped. It was clinically tested in 2017 in the U.S. for this FDA approval, paid for by a grant from the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, on 62 children for four weeks. The most common side effects observed were drowsiness, an increase in appetite, trouble sleeping, teeth clenching, headache and fatigue.
Results were recorded during clinical testing by asking the child to answer questions on the ADHD Rating Scale (ADHD-RS) such as whether they have difficulty paying attention or regularly interrupt others. Ratings of ADHD symptoms on various rating scales are entirely subjective, as are the diagnostic criteria for ADHD.
A prior feasibility study in 2015 was performed with 24 children for 8 weeks, using the ADHD-IV Rating Scale. It did not establish the durability of treatment effects following discontinuation of treatment, either.
To be blunt, ADHD is a fraudulent “disease.” In 1987, ADHD was literally voted into existence by a show of hands of American Psychiatric Association members and included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V). Within a year, 500,000 children in America alone were diagnosed with this, and to expand the client base it has also been associated with Asperger syndrome and Autism spectrum disorder.
ADHD actually represents the spontaneous behaviors of normal children. When these behaviors become age-inappropriate, excessive or disruptive, the potential causes are limitless, including: boredom, poor teaching, inconsistent discipline at home, reading difficulty, tiredness, street drugs, nutritional deficiency, toxic overload, bullying, abuse, stress, and many kinds of underlying physical illness.
By making an ADHD diagnosis, we ignore and stop looking for what is really going on with the child. These children need the adults in their lives to give them additional attention and to find and treat the actual causes, rather than shock their brains to see if that “works.”
There are no workable ADHD drugs, either for children or for adults. This new “treatment” is supposed to be appealing because it does not use drugs, but guess what? They don’t know how it is supposed to work, either; and they haven’t tested it long enough to know the consequences of running an electric current into a child’s brain.
Aw shucks, no one denies that children can have difficult problems in their lives. Mental health care is therefore both valid and necessary. However, the emphasis must be on workable mental healing methods that improve and strengthen them by restoring personal strength, ability, competence, confidence, stability, responsibility and spiritual well-being. Psychiatric treatments are not workable; they are designed, with shock and awe, to overwhelm.
