Electroconvulsive therapy and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

摘要

To evaluate a potential association between exposure to electric shocks and development of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), we conducted a cohort study using a systematic sample of approximately one million beneficiaries enrolled in the U.S. Medicare health insurance program from 1997 to 2015. Using time-varying proportional hazards modelling, we compared ALS occurrence among patients receiving electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), a source of exposure to electric currents in the brain without significant exposure to magnetic fields, given as a treatment for some psychiatric conditions, to ALS occurrence among patients receiving no ECT, but diagnosed with the same psychiatric conditions.