C. Norman Shealy

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Clyde Norman Shealy , called Norman Shealy, (born December 4, 1932 in Columbia, South Carolina ) is an American neurosurgeon and pioneer of pain therapy with electrical stimulation. The spinal cord stimulation and (with others) transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) in pain therapy go back to him. He is also a representative of holistic medicine .

Shealy graduated from Duke University with a MD in 1956. He has a Ph.D. in Psychology from the Saybrook Institute (1977). He completed his training as a neurosurgeon at Duke University Medical School, was an assistant surgeon at Washington University in St. Louis in 1957/58 , was a teaching fellow at the School of Medicine at Harvard Medical School in 1962/63, and initially as a senior instructor in 1963 Neurosurgery at Case Western Reserve University (then Western Reserve University), where he became an assistant professor in 1966. From 1967 to 1974 he was Clinical Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Wisconsin and from 1966 to 1971 he was director of neurosurgery at the Gunderson Clinic & Lutheran Hospital in La Crosse , Wisconsin. He was also 1970 to 1975 Associate Clinical Professor at the University of Minnesota and 1971 to 1982 Clinical Associate in the Department of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse, where he was Professor of Psychology from 1987.

In 1967 Shealy applied the gate control theory of pain by Patrick David Wall and Ronald Melzack (published 1965) to suppress pain with electrodes in the spinal cord (spinal cord stimulation , initially called dorsal column stimulation (DSC), later called spiral column stimulation , SCS ). The experimental possibility of pain suppression was demonstrated by Patrick Wall and Bill Sweet and published in 1967. In 1964, Shealy set his PhD student Tom Mortimer to develop implantable electrodes for spinal cord stimulation, which he did with the support of Norm Hagfors of Medtronic (who used the technology for pacemakers) for radio wave remote control. After Shealy moved from Case Western University to LaCrosse, he implanted the first DSC in a terminal cancer patient with good success in October 1967. He then worked directly with Medtronic (Myelostat 1968). In the 1970s he used TENS as a screening aid prior to therapy with DCS, and in some patients he obtained better therapeutic results with TENS. In the meantime, however, TENS had also been used by others for chronic pain.

From 1978 to 1980 he was president and one of the founders of the American Holistic Medical Association. He has published many books on holistic medicine and propagated them in his Holos Institute of Health. He was also Professor of Energy Medicine at the Holos University Graduate Seminar in Bolivar , Missouri. Most recently he has dealt with telomere rejuvenation (RejuvaMatrix) - far from conventional medical methods . According to his own information, he holds 14 patents in energy medicine . He is also the editor of the Journal of Comprehensive Integrative Medicine . He himself sees his development of DCS and TENS as the first steps in holistic medicine.

He is an honorary doctor of the Ryodoraku Institute.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Birth and career dates for American Men and Women of Science , Thomson Gale 2004
  2. ↑ CN Shealy, JT Mortimer, JB Reswick, Electrical inhibition of pain by stimulation of the dorsal columns: preliminary clinical report, Anesthesia and Analgesia, Volume 46, 1967, pp. 489-491
  3. ↑ Bill Sweet also developed an implantable nerve stimulator with the engineer Roger Avery, who then founded a company in this field.
  4. ^ Presentation of the story according to Philip Gildenberg, Neuromodulation: a historical perspective, in: Elliot Krames, P. Hunter Peckham, Ali R. Rezai (eds.), Neuromodulation, Academic Press 2009, Chapter 2
  5. ↑ Shealy, Six years' experience with electrical stimulation for control of pain, Adv. Neurol., Volume 4, 1974, pp. 775-782.
  6. ↑ For example, GA Meyer, HL Fields, Causalgia treated by selective large fiber stimulation of peripheral nerve, Brain, Volume 95, 1972, pp. 163-168
  7. ↑ Presentation of the history of TENS according to Kathleen Shuka, Howard Smith, Deirdre Walsh, Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS): a review, in: Elliot Krames, P. Hunter Peckham, Ali R. Rezai (eds.), Neuromodulation, Academic Press 2009, Chapter 24, pp. 335ff
  8. ↑ Norman Shealy , Foundation for Alternative and Integrative Medicine
personal data
SURNAME Shealy, C. Norman
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Shealy, Norman; Shealy, Clyde Norman
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American neurosurgeon
DATE OF BIRTH 4th December 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Columbia, South Carolina