INFLUENCE OF SEX AND AGE ON CONVULSIONS INDUCED BY ELECTRIC SHOCK TREATMENT

Abstract

WITH A view to elucidating the influence of different factors on the duration and intensity of an epileptic seizure and on the frequency of the clonic jerks, I have previously investigated the effect, inter alia, of the administration of oxygen (Holmberg¹). In the present article the influence of sex and age factors will be considered. Watterson² found that the stimulus threshold for electrically induced epileptic seizures rises with increasing age. Kalinowsky³ observed that the stimulus threshold was higher when the patients were more advanced in age, and that the threshold was higher for men than for women. I have not been able to find that any investigation of the influence of age and sex factors on the duration and intensity of the convulsions is mentioned in the literature. METHOD AND MATERIAL A special electromyographic method was employed for recording the convulsions (Holmberg¹). By means of the