Forget 'Cuckoo's Nest' — Safer shock therapy helping treat depression

Today an estimated 100,000 Americans — two-thirds of them women — undergo the treatment for major depression and other severe mental illnesses each year. That's about triple the number of procedures at ECT's lowest point, in 1980, when an onslaught of new anti-psychotic drugs as well as public stigma toward the treatment — driven in significant part by movies like "Cuckoo's Nest" — led to a dramatic drop in its usage. (CAPITAL TIMES, 5/18)