Electric shock therapy to help addicts break the habit.

[dArKeR]

A nurse inserts an intravenous drip into a 12-year-old boy's arm at the Beijing Military Region Central Hospital in Beijing on June 17. The boy, who previously spent four straight days in an Internet cafe, is one of 300 people who have been treated for Internet addiction at the hospital. The clinic, the country's first government-approved facility geared toward curing Internet addicts, has been operating since last October, and uses electric shock therapy to help addicts break the habit.

[NMDemDist2]

1. wow! that's a bit like taking a sledgehammer to kill a housefly!

:scared:

[dArKeR]

2. Notice the nurse is NOT wearing protective gloves!

[Taxloss]

3. That kid has thin arms - serious problem there.

I doubt this picture has anything to do with the caption. That kid is anorexic or something.

[ismnotwasm]

4. Looks like an old fashioned latex tourniquet

IV start maybe.

[astral]

5. Using electroshock for ANYTHING is SICK

I hear lobotomies are coming back into fashion too.

[Tallison]

6. Actually, I've seen it work quite well

for cases of major depressive disorder that didn't respond to any kind of pharmacological intervention. I've had some patients (I'm a former psych RN) who credit it with having saved their lives. If I ever suffered from a major mental illness, I'd subject myself to ECT (electro-convulsive therapy) way before I would many of the drugs that are out there, having witnessed first hand their side effects).

[Tallison]

7. Funny, I just googled "internet addiction" and

the first search result that appeared was for the "Online Center for Internet Addiction." Struck me as a little ironic.

[KitchenWitch]

8. That is FUNNY!

:rofl:

Like an online center would be of any help... :silly:

[SPKrazy]

10. ROFL!

online center for internet addiction to online centers for internet addictions

:wtf:

[Why Syzygy]

9. kick . because / nt

[varkam]

11. It's not clear to me whether..

they mean electric shock therapy ala behavior modification or electro-convlusive shock therapy as there is a pretty big difference between the two, though it seems to me both would be viable treatment options; at least that is when more conventional methods have failed.

As I understand it, behavior modification involves applying a painful stimulus (e.x. an electric shock) when confronted with the object of the addiction. For example, alcoholics might imagine themselves ordering a drink at a bar and then recieve a shock. The end goal of that is to create an aversive association with the focus of the addiction.

Electro-convlusive shock therapy, however, is a bit more drastic. It involves passing electric current through the brain, effectively inducing a grand mal seizure. AFAIA, that's used as a last ditch treatment with severely depressed persons for whom traditional methods have failed. From what I understand it helps some people quite a bit, but it can also have some nasty side-effects depending on the length and course of the treatments - such as retrograde amnesia.

[Why Syzygy]

12. OP reads

Internet cafe. If four days straight on the Internet qualifies one for electro-whatever . I'm way over due and I'm not signing up.