The sleep cure, what is it and why is it no longer used?

The sleep cure is actually a very old intervention, but it was not formalized as a treatment until the beginning of the 20th century, mainly in Russia. This type of therapy showed very encouraging results against schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, addictions and other disorders.

Nowadays the sleep cure is not part of the treatments conventional, although it has not completely disappeared either. Some patients continue to use it and some psychiatrists continue to use it, in a particular way.

The sleep cure can be very effective in the treatment of various mental disorders. However, Chelmsford Hospital (Australia) reported the death of 25 patients between 1963 and 1979 due to the use of this therapy. This led to it being discarded as an option in almost the entire world.

What is the sleep cure?

One of the first manifestations of mental disorders is difficulty sleeping. Likewise, one of the ways to greatly recover mental stability is through deep and restful sleep. A virtue of rest that was detected since the origins of psychiatry and psychology and that motivated the development of the sleep cure.

The sleep cure can be defined as a therapy in which a person who has a mental disorder is induced into deep sleep. It is said to be an “intensive therapy” of psychiatry, because the affected person must sleep between 5 and 9 days continuously. This can even extend up to three weeks.

The person is made to remain asleep through the administration of different drugs that generate this effect. Those who undergo this type of therapy only wake up briefly to eat and carry out their physiological needs. As far as is known, the first to use this technique was MacLeod, in 1900.

However, It was Jakov Klasi who instituted it as a treatment at the Burghölzli Clinic in Switzerland. He called it “prolonged sleep cure” or “prolonged narcosis,” but it became popular as the sleep cure.

The contributions of this therapy

The sleep cure began to gain prestige and was used almost all over the world. It showed special effectiveness in stabilizing people who were going through a period of great agitation.. It seemed clear that the medications used to sedate them and put them to sleep for a considerable period of time restored their stability when they woke up.

There are mental states that involve an overactivation of dopamine, adrenaline and norepinephrine.. Thus, both the sleep state itself, as well as the continuous administration of drugs, manage to restore the conditions to the brain so that it functions in a more stable manner.

People in a state of high nervous excitement are very vulnerable to any stimulus in the environment. When we are asleep, external factors that may cause disturbance are suppressed.; Consciousness is also suppressed, so that activity decreases and tends to normalize.

Side effects and risks

From the beginning, therapists reported a number of side effects to this treatment. Klasi himself reported the death of 3 of the 26 patients to whom he applied this method. Likewise, several of his successors spoke of problems such as increased body temperature, urinary retention, dysphagia, and walking and speech disorders.

The medications administered were changed several times and everything seemed to work better. However, This treatment also requires continuous nursing care and constant medical monitoring., which made its application difficult. Patient monitoring was very demanding. For this reason, above all, the sleep cure gradually fell into disuse when the first neuroleptics were born.

The final blow, however, came after a report from the Chelmsford Private Hospital (Australia) was published. The document said that the sleep cure had been applied to 1,115 patients for 15 years and that during that period 25 of them had died as a result of it. The following year, this therapy was banned in both Australia and New Zealand.

Despite everything, in many parts of the world it continues to be applied. It has been proven that many of the deaths are associated with medical problems unrelated to the treatment itself. In any case, if you resort to this therapy, it must be applied in a specialized center and by qualified professionals.

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