Vignette # 1
John, a fourteen year old Caucasian male with a history of psychiatric treatment including medication intervention for depression and developmental deviation with a hyperkinetic element. His history of school functioning had been poor although he was not reported to display excessive body movement or squirminess difficulty attending was a problem. During the initial psychological evaluation on a measure of depression he scored at the 76th percentile, while on a measure of anxiety he scored at the 81st percentile with present moment (state) anxiety and at the 68th percentile with general proneness (trait) anxiety. On the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) Full Scale intellectual functioning was in the Average range (Full Scale IQ = 108) with verbal area functioning also in the Average range (Verbal IQ = 107) and performance area functioning in the Average range
(Performance IQ = 107) as well.
After thirty days daily usage of at least forty-five minutes with the CES device he was again administered a psychological evaluation. On the same measure of depression John scored at the 74th percentile, while on the same measure of anxiety he scored at the 7th percentile with present moment (state) anxiety and at the 47th percentile with general proneness (trait) anxiety, a very noticeable decrease with his levels of anxiety. On the WISC-R Full Scale intellectual functioning was in the High Average range (Full Scale IQ = 114) with verbal area functioning in the Average range (Verbal IQ = 102) and Performance area functioning in the High Average range (Performance IQ = 126). Higher scores in the Performance area indicated a gain of more than three standard deviations which by chance alone would occur in less than two in ten thousand cases (p<.0002). These results were obtained even though John was physically ill during the post CES evaluation. In the psychologist’s opinion there would have been more of an increase if he had been feeling better.