Transcutaneous acupoint electrical stimulation in preventing and treating nausea and vomiting in patients receiving electroconvulsive therapy.

A significant number of patients complain of nausea after general anesthesia and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Nausea is second only to headache as the most frequent and troublesome systemic side effect of ECT. The most common treatment of this is antiemetic drugs. Transcutaneous acupoint electrical stimulation (TAES) is a nonpharmacologic method for preventing and treating nausea and vomiting. TAES can alleviate motion sickness, reduce the incidence of vomiting caused by chemotherapy, and treat pregnancy-induced nausea and vomiting. TAES has been shown to reduce the incidence of postoperative nausea after general anesthesia. This is the first report to review the effectiveness of TAES in preventing and treating nausea and vomiting in 11 patients receiving ECT. Nine of these patients had a good response to TAES. One patient had a mixed response, and 1 did not respond to TAES.