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Archive for January 20th, 2011

posted Thursday, 14 May 2009

Majority of America’s 2 million adolescents suffering from depression episodes did not receive treatment in the past year


SAMHSA


Adolescents without health insurance were less than half as likely to get treatment as those with Medicaid/Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) or private health insurance coverage.


A new report reveals that 8.2 percent (2 million) youths aged 12 to 17 experienced at least one major depressive episode in the past year. Only about two-fifths (38.9%) of these adolescents received treatment during this period according to the report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).


A major depressive episodes is defined as a period of two weeks or longer during which there is either depressed mood or loss of interest or pleasure and at least four other symptoms that reflect a change in functioning, including problems with sleep, eating, energy, concentration, and self-image.


The report also found that health insurance coverage seemed to be a major factor in determining whether adolescents experiencing major depressive episodes in the past year received treatment. Among these adolescents, those without health insurance coverage were far less likely to have received treatment (17.2%) than those with Medicaid/CHIP (42.9%) or private health insurance (40.6%).


Based on a nationwide SAMHSA survey, Major Depressive Episode and Treatment among Adolescents also reveals the types of treatments adolescents received for major depressive episodes. The report shows that among treated adolescents:


  • *58.8 percent saw or spoke with a counselor
  • *36.8 percent saw or spoke with a psychologist
  • *27.3 percent saw or spoke with a psychiatrist or psychotherapist
  • *26.6 percent saw or spoke with a general practitioner or family doctor

 

In addition, the report shows that less than half (46.8%) of adolescents who received treatment for an depressive episodes in the past year used prescription medication for their condition.


This report contributes to the growing realization that much more must be done to meet enormous mental health needs of our young people,” said SAMHSA’s Acting Administrator, Eric Broderick, D.D.S, M.P.H. “This report, along with the enactment of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act and the recent landmark report by the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine on children’s mental health, highlight our nation’s growing concern and commitment to alleviating the damage and suffering inflicted by untreated mental disorders on children, their families and their communities.


The report is drawn from SAMHSA’s 2007 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), which collected data from a representative sample of approximately 22,000 adolescents throughout the United States.

 

 

 

SAMHSA, Office of Applied Studies, 2009 May 12. The NSDUH Report: Major Depressive Episode and Treatment among Adolescents. Rockville, MD. [HTML | PDF (PDF)]



First Published Thursday, 14 May 2009

There appear to be a great many on the autism spectrum and within spectrum families who suffer from headaches in their various forms. For those dealing with daily cluster-type headaches, I feel and share your pain. There are some wonderful websites filled with the latest information and with built-in support forums on the net these days. Please remember that no matter what type of headache you have, the most important thing is that you see a health care professional for treatment. Self-diagnoses of head-pain can be life threatening.


Types of Migraines & Headaches


http://www.healthcentral.com/migraine/types-of-headaches.html


Symptoms & Types


What’s your headache pattern? Frequent headaches, tension headaches, cluster headaches, migraines. Learn the symptoms and types — and then talk to a doctor.


Symptoms


Common Migraine and Headache Symptoms


Not all headaches are the same and symptoms vary. See what yours mean. Are your headache symptoms from a migraine?


Learn About What Happens During a Migraine


Our doctors at eMedicinehealth.com outline the five phases of migraine.

Warning Signs


Severe Headache or Medical Emergency?


Learn these warning signs and when to head for the hospital or call a headache specialist.


Know What to Do About Severe Headaches


Check these 12 symptoms of headache emergency from our doctors at eMedicinehealth.com.


Types


Cluster Headaches


Does severe headache pain attack you in cycles? You may have cluster headaches.


Related Guide: Types of Migraine Headaches


Did you know that migraines can exist with other conditions? Learn about the different types of migraine headaches. See who gets them and what conditions can be associated them.


Sinus Headaches


Got sinus headache pain? Get some answers.


Tension Headaches


Get some answers about tension headaches here.


Complications


Have Frequent Migraines Become a Daily Problem?


Learn about “transformed headaches” – migraine headaches that become a daily menace.


Rebound Headaches: Who Gets These Frequent Headaches?


Rebound headaches happen when you misuse or overuse pain relievers. Here’s what to do.


Migraine With Aura Ups Heart Risk


Women who have migraines with auras disturbance have an increased risk of heart disease.


Source: http://www.webmd.com/migraines-headaches/guide/migraines-headaches-symtpoms-types


Cluster Headaches


Cluster headache, nicknamed “suicide headache“, is a neurological disease that involves, as its most prominent feature, an immense degree of pain. “Cluster” refers to the tendency of these headaches to occur periodically, with active periods interrupted by spontaneous remissions. The cause of the disease is currently unknown. It affects approximately 0.1% of the population, and men are more commonly affected than women.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_headache



What Are Cluster Headaches?


Although many people have never heard of cluster headaches, they are possibly the most debilitating of all headaches. The pain is excruciating, and because they do happen fairly predictably in a pattern, there is the added stress of the anticipation of that pain. Perhaps they aren’t as well known as migraines because only about one percent of the population suffers from them, men more than women by 4:1, but even so there are probably one million Americans victimized by these headaches.


If you have cluster headaches, let me hasten to direct you to a support group at http://www.clusterheadaches.com. The webmaster is a 32 year old career Air Force man who has suffered from cluster headaches since he was 18 years old. In short, he knows whereof he speaks, and the thousands of people who have added their stories to the message board can certainly help you in those moments when you feel terribly alone in your pain. Nobody understands as well as someone who has been there.

You can also click on to “Ask Doc Greg” on this website to learn interesting facts or ask questions of this doctor and cluster headache sufferer who studied at Johns Hopkins and received his M.D. from George Washington University. He answers with knowledge and compassion, in plain English – no medical gobbledygook.


Cluster headaches are quite unlike migraines although they also typically affect one side of the head. They are thought to be caused by the release of serotonin (histamine), but antihistamines don’t help. They are not hereditary. Many people who suffer from cluster headaches have a history of heavy smoking, another good reason to stop smoking. Alcohol can trigger a cluster headache, even before you finish one drink.


They happen quickly, often awakening the person from sleep. The pain is intense. In fact, mothers have said it’s worse than the pain of natural childbirth, and men have said it feels like being stabbed in the eye with an ice pick or being grabbed by the talons of a huge bird.


Along with the pain comes drooping of the eyelid, excessive tearing and bloodshot appearance on the affected side, plus nasal congestion, and the person is agitated and unable to remain still. At the height of the pain, which is reached within five to fifteen minutes, the person will commonly bang his head on the furniture or anything solid, and some victims have actually committed suicide. Each headache lasts between a few minutes and an hour or more before disappearing as fast as it began.


The pattern of the clusters is either episodic or chronic. Episodic cluster headaches happen daily, sometimes several a day, for a few weeks or months and then go into remission for a period of months or years. They often happen in spring or fall, but are not connected with allergies. About ten percent of cluster headache sufferers have chronic clusters which happen for a year or more without relief.

You can imagine that if you are enduring several of these ordeals each day for a period of weeks, unable to sleep because you fear waking up with this terrible pain, everything in your life suffers. Your spouse, unable to help except for occasionally driving you to the emergency room, is subject to a high level of stress too and your marriage may suffer. You are likely too tired to do your job well, and every other aspect of your life may be consumed by the stress and anxiety caused by your headaches.



On top of all that, you tell your boss or your friend that you have cluster headaches and they say, “Oh, that’s a shame. I have some awful headaches too, and sometimes aspirin just doesn’t do the trick.” You probably have murderous fantasies about such people, but they simply don’t understand.


About the only thing a cluster headache sufferer can do is talk with his doctor about the various preventative medications available. Sometimes they do work, although not everyone benefits from them. The doctor may prescribe one medication to help prevent cluster headaches and another to take during the headache. In another article we’ll discuss the drugs and other treatments being used now.


Other than that, regular sleep habits, avoiding alcohol during a cluster, and trying to reduce the stress in your life can be of some help. Several of the websites I’ve listed for this page have helpful information about clusters, but for these frightening, excruciating headaches you really need to see your doctor and discuss what you can do to cope.


Source: http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/headaches/29295/1


Cluster Headaches Worldwide Support Group


http://www.clusterheadaches.com/



From clusterheadaches.com “A Neurologist that I saw once gave me some information to take home from one of her medical books. To this day, it is still the BEST information that I have ever seen on Cluster Headaches…it’s awesome!


Even if you have suffered from Clusters your entire life and think you’ve read it all, you will find this info most interesting! It is quite a bit of reading, and quite difficult to follow at times, but well worth your time. Probably the easiest way to read it is if you print it out and read it when you get the chance.”:

http://www.clusterheadaches.com/about.html


Cluster Headache Survey:


http://www.clusterheadaches.com/survey/index.html


“Water, Water, Water – The following information was written by Margi, the wife of a cluster headache sufferer. It has grown to be know simply as the “water treatment”. We’ve had so many requests for it that it has become it’s own page so you don’t have to search through all of the posts in the archives to find it.


It won’t work for everyone and may not work for you, but it may be worth a try. After all, it’s FREE!”:

http://www.clusterheadaches.com/water.html


Typical Traits of a Cluster Headache:

http://www.clusterheadaches.com/traits.html


The Kip Cluster Headache Pain Scale:

http://www.clusterheadaches.com/scale.html


Headache Links(Cluster & Other Types):


http://www.clusterheadaches.com/links.html


Paroxymsal Hemicrania – The Basics


by Teri Robert, Lead Expert


In the simplest of terms, paroxysmal hemicrania (PH) is a rare form of headache that usually begins in adulthood.


Characteristics of the pain of PH


  • *severe throbbing

  • *claw-like, or boring

  • *usually on one side of the face; in, around, or behind the eye

  • *occasionally reaching to the back of the neck

The pain of PH may be accompanied by:


  • *red and tearing eyes (lacrimation)

  • *a drooping or swollen eyelid on the affected side of the face

  • *nasal congestion

  • *dull pain, soreness, or tenderness between attacks

Episodes of paroxysmal hemicrania typically occur from 5 to 40 times per day and last 2 to 45 minutes. The disorder has two forms:


  1. 1. Chronic PH: patients experience attacks on a daily basis for a year or more

  2. 2. Episodic PH: the headaches may remit for months or years

Certain movements of the head or neck or external pressure to the neck may trigger these headaches in some patients. The disorder is more common in women than in men.


Is there any treatment?
The nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) indomethacin often provides complete relief from symptoms. Other less effective NSAIDs including celecoxib (Celebrex), calcium-channel blocking drugs (such as verapamil), and corticosteroids may be used to treat the disorder. Patients with both paroxysmal hemicrania and trigeminal neuralgia (a condition of the 5th cranial nerve that causes sudden, severe pain typically felt on one side of the jaw or cheek) should receive treatment for each disorder.


What is the prognosis?
Many patients experience complete to near-complete relief of symptoms following physician-supervised medical treatment. Paroxysmal hemicrania may last indefinitely but has been known to go into remission or stop spontaneously.


Information from the International Headache Society’s International Classification of Headache Disorders, 2nd Edition, is the best description of CP available:


3.2 Paroxysmal hemicrania
Description:
Attacks with similar characteristics of pain and associated symptoms and signs to those of cluster headache, but they are shorter-lasting, more frequent, occur more commonly in females and respond absolutely to indomethacin.

Diagnostic criteria:

  1. 1.  At least 20 attacks fulfilling criteria B–D

  2. 2.  Attacks of severe unilateral orbital, supraorbital or temporal pain lasting 2–30 minutes

  3. 3.  Headache is accompanied by at least one of the following:

    1. 1.  ipsilateral (on the same side as the headache) conjunctival injection (The forcing of a fluid into the conjuctiva, the mucous membrane that lines the eyelids.) and/or lacrimation (tearing)

    2. 2.  ipsilateral nasal congestion and/or rhinorrhoea (runny nose)

    3. 3.  ipsilateral eyelid oedema (swelling)

    4. 4.  ipsilateral forehead and facial sweating

    5. 5.  ipsilateral miosis (abnormal contraction of the pupils) and/or ptosis (drooping of the eyelid)

  4. 6.  Attacks have a frequency above 5 per day for more than half of the time, although periods with lower frequency may occur

  5. 7.  Attacks are prevented completely by therapeutic doses of indomethacin (Note 1)

  6. 8.  Not attributed to another disorder (Note 2)

Notes:

  1. 1.  In order to rule out incomplete response, indomethacin should be used in a dose of 150mg or more daily orally or rectally, or 100 mg or by injection, but for maintenance smaller doses are often sufficient.

  1. 2.  History and physical and neurological examinations do not suggest any of the disorders listed in groups 5–12, or history and/or physical and/or neurological examinations do suggest such disorder but it is ruled out by appropriate investigations, or such disorder is present but attacks do not occur for the first time in close temporal relation to the disorder.

Comments:

There is no male predominance. Onset is usually in adulthood, although childhood cases are reported. In the first edition all paroxysmal hemicranias were referred to as chronic paroxysmal hemicrania. Sufficient clinical evidence for the episodic subtype has accumulated to separate it in a manner analogous to cluster headache.

Paroxysmal hemicrania with coexistent trigeminal neuralgia (CPH-tic syndrome): Patients who fulfill criteria for both 3.2 Paroxysmal hemicrania and 13.1 Trigeminal neuralgia should receive both diagnoses. The importance of this observation is that both conditions require treatment. The pathophysiological significance of the association is not yet clear.

Summary and comments:


Paroxysmal Hemicrania (PH) is rare and difficult to treat. In most cases, patients with PH should seek care from a headache and Migraine specialist. Some of the symptoms, to an untrained practitioner could be mistaken for cluster headache. The response to indomethacin is one confirmation of a PH diagnosis. However, indomethacin is not well tolerated by some patients. If that occurs, other less effective NSAIDs including celecoxib (Celebrex), calcium-channel blocking drugs (such as verapamil), and corticosteroids may be used.


Also see:


Source: http://www.healthcentral.com/migraine/types-of-headaches-271536-5.html


Paroxysmal Hemicrania – a Comprehensive View:


http://www.wellsphere.com/detailedSearch.s?keyword=Paroxysmal+Hemicrania&x=34&y=19


Women and Tension Headaches
Women are highly susceptible to tension headaches, due to high-stress careers, motherhood, and the demands of homemaking. Learn more about this type of headache.
women and tension headaches • high-stress careers • fast-paced lives • what are tension headaches • symptoms of tension headaches


Women and Headaches
How headaches effect the health of women.
women • headaches • cluster headaches • migrane headaches • migranes


For the Latest Headache News …

http://www.sciencedaily.com/news/mind_brain/headaches/


Latest Research


“Abstract: The relationship between migraine and mental disorders”:

http://aspie-editorial.blog-city.com/abstract_the_relationship_between_migraine_and_mental_disor.htm


“Abstract: Migraine in recurrent Depression”:

http://aspie-editorial.blog-city.com/abstract_migraine_in_recurrent_depression.htm


“Migraine Uncovered: Interview with Dr. Cady, Headache Expert”:

http://brainblogger.com/2009/05/16/migraine-uncovered-interview-headache-expert/


“Persistent Migraine Aura: The Girl With Kaleidoscope Eyes”:

http://aspie-editorial.blog-city.com/persistent_migraine_aura_the_girl_with_kaleidoscope_eyes.htm




1. BxL left…


Friday, 16 July 2010 2:00 pm

I get a headache about twice a week. The cause has to be stress. I usually put pressure and massage the spots that hurt. That doesn’t work every time, but it surely helps.

Read more about frequent headaches at http://www.frequent-headaches.com/



*Site Under Construction

posted Thursday, 14 May 2009

Diamond in the rough

Sandrine Bonnaire rose above a childhood in the run-down Paris suburbs to an acting career that has astonished France. Angelique Chrisafis meets her

On a hot spring day in a leafy suburb outside Paris, I’m wandering a tree-lined avenue trying to find Sandrine Bonnaire’s house. A gate in a high wall opens, giving way to a garden in bloom and a grand villa. Bonnaire’s husband, Guillaume Laurant, the screenwriter who co-wrote Amélie, welcomes me at the door. It could be the perfect setting for a French film. But then Bonnaire bursts down the stairs, coffee in hand, still chewing her breakfast, flinging herself on to an old sofa, puncturing any sense of grandeur.

Bonnaire is one of France’s best living actors, arguably the best of her generation. Over 27 years, her dimples and wide-eyed stare have featured in 49 films (her 50th is in pre-production) and her portrayals of misfits – from the stubborn drifter in Agnes Varda’s Vagabond to the illiterate housekeeper in Claude Chabrol’s La Cérémonie – earned her a reputation as cinema’s intellectual pin-up. However, she comes from anything but an intellectual background. Raised with her 10 siblings on a run-down estate outside Paris, Bonnaire left school at 15 after the director Maurice Pialat cast her in À Nos Amours (To Our Loves). Her performance as a loud-mouthed teenager with multiple boyfriends so astonished the critics that some feared the untrained 15-year-old would never be able to live up to it.

More than a quarter of a century later, though, she is a household name, famed for her emotional honesty on the screen and off it. Two years ago, she broke the silence in France surrounding autism, with a harrowing documentary about her sister, Sabine, showing her descent from piano-playing, high-functioning teenager to withdrawn and violent adult after being confined for five years in a psychiatric hospital where she was restrained and drugged. It had record audiences on French TV, won an award at Cannes, was shown across the world and saw her summoned by Nicolas Sarkozy to advise him on new plans for autism care.

Now Bonnaire is back in front of the camera in Mark of an Angel (L’Empreinte de l’Ange), an understated psychological thriller about a different family trauma: babies swapped at birth and brought up by the wrong parents. The film was inspired by a 2003 US news story about parents who realised their 10-year-old daughter had been switched on a maternity ward. But in the film, by director Safy Nebbou, the American saga has been pared down, twisted and turned on its head. A woman sees a young girl who she thinks resembles the baby she lost in a hospital fire years before. Obsessed by the likeness, she begins stalking the girl’s real mother and family.

It’s a subject with so much resonance in France that the same US case has already inspired a French TV film. “It’s such a universal story, I suppose,” says Bonnaire. “But this film is about lies: lies at the heart of a family and lying to yourself.”

Bonnaire plays a bourgeois mother with a perfect home and family; Catherine Frot, better known for playing comedy until the recent thriller The Page Turner, plays the woman driven mad by grief. Bonnaire says that after years of playing outsiders and misfits, she found it difficult to play the contented wife. “Safy said, ‘You’re a very nice woman, happy in herself, with a good husband and a nice house.’ And curiously, it was much harder to play that part than what comes afterwards in the film. I’ve never really played everyday people. I’ve played realist roles, but not mere daily life. There was always something incredible happening to my characters.”

But she liked the idea of a thriller about a family. “Our family makes us who we are, defines us totally. When you go to a therapist or have analysis, whatever reason you go in for, they will always bring you back to your family. We’re strong or weak according to what family we have. You might have left them long ago, might not even talk to them, but something lingers, we have no choice.”

Until Bonnaire lifted the lid on a life spent caring for her younger autistic sister, she had been reluctant to talk about her own family, or her Jehovah’s Witness mother. Did her childhood give her a sense of faith? “No, the only Jehovah’s Witness was my mother. Even my father didn’t believe in it; there was a lot of conflict between them because of that. We never believed in any of it; it annoyed us. We couldn’t bear that milieu, that world, those people – to us it was awful. Me, I don’t know where you find faith. I tend to say faith is believing in life, and as I love life, I try to do the best with it, make it as serene and joyous as possible. Like everyone, I guess.”

Bonnaire was the sixth of 11 children, and her sister Sabine was the seventh. She made the documentary, Her Name Is Sabine (Elle S’Appelle Sabine), “to bear witness” for all the other families of autistic people in France. In it, she cuts together her old home-video footage of the beautiful, long-haired young Sabine dancing, playing the piano, going on holiday to New York, swimming in the sea and speaking English. It stands in sharp contrast to the bloated, anxious, highly medicated Sabine of today, biting her hand and lashing out. Sabine watches the old home videos and weeps what she calls “tears of joy”. Her Name Is Sabine also follows her new life in a small house with carers in the French countryside. Bonnaire said she wanted to make the film because there weren’t enough proper portrayals of autistic people on screen. Rain Man, she felt, did not tell the whole story. People now stop Sabine in the street, recognising her from the film. I ask how she is. “I was with her yesterday,” Bonnaire says. “She’s making constant progress. The film did her good, the fact that people are taking an interest in her, that she can feel useful. It’s a big thing, because Sabine was always hidden, locked up in a hospital, called Crazy Sabine. And today she is accepted in the social world – people come to see her and tell her they loved the film. That has been very positive.”

Bonnaire only started acting by chance at 15, when one of her sisters answered Maurice Pialat’s ad for a teenager to star in À Nos Amours. She accompanied her sisters to a casting, just to watch, but was asked to do a test and, after a gruelling selection process, was chosen. “I didn’t want to be an actress. It wasn’t a dream. I didn’t have any dreams at all. Where I came from, families didn’t have money and no one could have afforded acting classes. For cinemas or museums, you had to go to Paris, which seemed really far away to us. When you’re a small child there’s no problem with the banlieues [high-rise suburbs] because it’s like a big playground where everyone knows each other. But when you become teenagers, you realise it’s a kind of ghetto: all the people on a certain income are put in one place, all the immigrants are put in another. So you feel shut away. Paris for us was like crossing a border.”

Now, she says, after working with so many intellectuals, she has educated herself. “But I’m absolutely not a grand intellectual, not at all.” Her Name Is Sabine has given her a taste for directing and she is writing her second screenplay, inspired by a man she knew as a child.

As for the future of French film, she says: “Our big directors are getting old now. Some have already left us, and those still here won’t be here for much longer. There are some young directors who are interesting, but I honestly don’t know who will be as talented as a Claude Sautet, a Claude Chabrol or a Maurice Pialat. For the moment, I can’t see who could take over. The fact that cinema is now funded by television has changed things: it’s more about entertainment, more comedy. From time to time, little miracles come along, like Seraphine, or La Graine et le Moulet (Couscous). And yet all the time people say, ‘Oh, la la’ – they’re worried French film is not going to last much longer. I’ve been hearing that for 15 years, but we’re still the country in Europe that makes the most films each year. We make more films than you, but perhaps our films don’t travel as well because of the language.”

With her own career, nothing was planned, she says. She never chose the astonishing roles given to her; she chose directors first. “I just wanted to work with the greats of French cinema,” she says with a shrug. “And they always cast me as rather marginal girls.”

• Sandrine Bonnaire will join a Q&A at Ciné Lumière, London, on Monday. Mark of an Angel is released on 22 May

Source:   http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/may/08/sandrine-bonnaire-interview

Related Article

France: “My Sister Sabine” Has Impact On Policy Makers/New Autism Plan
http://aspie-editorial.blog-city.com/france__my_sister_sabine_has_impact_on_policy_makersnew_.htm



*Site Under Construction

posted Thursday, 14 May 2009

Illinois House of Reps

Bullying Bills Pass IL & NY Houses

The Illinois House of Representatives and New York State Assembly have
passed similar bills calling attention the problem of workplace bullying. In
New York, A 2247 passed with a vote of 142-1 on May 6. In Illinois, HRJ 40
passed 114-0 on April 30. Both bills commission statewide studies of the
problem.

In New York, A 2247 (Mark Schroeder, D-145) directs the Department of Labor
to conduct a study of hostile workplace behavior and to make recommendations
within a year. Comprehensive versions of the Workplace Bullying Institute
(WBI) Healthy Workplace Bill (HWB), which would prevent abuse by employers,
have been introduced in the Assembly (A 5414A) and Senate (S1823A).

In Illinois a $100,000 Task Force to study fiscal and employee health impact
of bullying on private sector companies will be comprised of eight lawmakers
with support from the Department of Human Services. Rep. Arthur Turner (D-9)
was the sponsor of HJR 40 and the prime sponsor of a more comprehensive bill
for public sector employers. HB 374, the WBI HWB, has not advanced in the
House.

The positive House/Assembly votes send both study bills to the respective
Senate chambers. “This progress is encouraging for the anti-bullying
legislative movement. We only began citizen lobbying in 2003,” said WBI
Director Gary Namie. “The historical business lobby mantra of ‘no
regulation’ prevais in all legislatures. The economic meltdown and
subsequent populist outrage may give lawmakers the push to do something for
American workers.”

In 2009, the WBI Legislative Campaign, the national network of State
Coordinators, produced some version of the WBI HWB in 12 states. Since 2003,
16 states have introduced such legislation. Namie states, “We are prepared
for a long-term campaign because domestic violence, civil rights, women’s
rights, and schoolyard bullying were problems decades before lawmakers took
action.”

History of the WBI HWB is found at — workplacebullyinglaw.org and
healthyworkplacebill.org

Visit the New York Healthy Workplace Advocates (WBI-LC Affiliates) website

Visit the Illinois Healthy Workplace Advocates (WBI-LC Affiliates) website


Ari Ne’eman
President
The Autistic Self Advocacy Network
1660 L Street, NW, Suite 700
Washington, DC  20036
http://www.autisticadvocacy.org
732.763.5530

————————————————————–
Take a look at our innovative new Public Service Announcement produced with
the Dan Marino Foundation at http://www.nomyths.org

If you like what we do, help support the Autistic Self Advocacy Network by
making a donation at:
https://www.change.org/donation/create?charity_id=211198



*Site Under Construction

posted Thursday, 14 May 2009

Major depression and alcohol dependence co-occur in individuals and within families at higher rates than expected by chance.

A new study has looked at how mood-related drinking motives may explain the overlapping familial risk for major depression and alcohol dependence. Findings suggest that individuals with strong mood-related drinking motives, especially those based on negative feelings, may be vulnerable to developing both major depression and alcohol dependence.

The results will be published in the August issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

Although the frequent co-occurrence of alcohol dependence and major depression is widely recognized, the association between the disorders works differently for different people,” explained Kelly Young-Wolff, whose master’s thesis provided the stimulus for the study. “There are likely multiple mechanisms that result in the disorders co-occurring, for example, having major depression increases the risk to develop alcohol dependence, having alcohol dependence increases the risk to develop major depression; and causal factors – such as genetic risk or social circumstances – also contribute to developing both disorders.

The association can also differ by gender, added Victor Hesselbrock, professor of psychiatry at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine.

Studies of both clinical and community samples have found that primary depression – depression occurs first, followed by alcoholism – is more typical in females while primary alcoholism – alcoholism followed by depression – is more common among males. Furthermore, while most persons affected with alcoholism do report a lifetime history of significant depressive symptoms, the reverse is not true. Most people with depression do not report long periods of heavy drinking nor do they report significant numbers of lifetime alcohol dependence symptoms,” he said.

Previous research had shown that individuals with higher than average scores on mood-related drinking scales are at increased risk to develop heavy drinking and alcohol dependence,” added Young-Wolff. “There is also evidence for familial risk factors, such as shared social and environmental or genetic factors, that contribute to overlapping risk for major depression and alcohol dependence, and for AD and mood-related drinking motives. Yet no study had examined whether mood-related drinking motives explain the overlapping familial risk for major depression and alcohol dependence.

Researchers examined 5,181 individuals (2,928 males, 2253 females), aged 30 and older, drawn from the Virginia Adult Twin Study of Psychiatric and Substance Use Disorders, a longitudinal study of psychopathology in two samples of adult twins. Participants completed a clinical interview which assessed lifetime major depression, alcohol dependence, and mood-related drinking motives.

Our study suggests that the familial factors that underlie mood-related drinking motives are the same factors that contribute to the overlapping familial risk for major depression and alcohol dependence,” said Young-Wolff. “The results are consistent with an indirect role for mood-related drinking motives in risk for depression and alcohol dependence, and suggest that individuals with strong mood-related drinking motives may be vulnerable to developing both major depression and alcohol dependence.

In short,” he continued, “the findings indicate that the drinking motives for both males and females who are well into the period of risk for both alcohol dependence and for major depressive disorder are similar. However, it should be noted that the findings do not address motives regarding the initiation of drinking behavior in adolescence; the findings apply only to the subjects’ current drinking behavior. Since this was not a longitudinal study that began in adolescence, it cannot be assumed that these subjects’ motives for beginning to drink when they were teenagers were to cope with feelings of depression.

We might remember that there are many people with high mood-related drinking motives who do not have a history of major depression or alcohol dependence,” cautioned Carol A. Prescott, professor of psychology at the University of Southern California and corresponding author for the study. “We would argue that the occasional use of alcohol to relax or unwind is not necessarily a bad idea. What should be avoided is heavy drinking as a regular coping strategy, since this can lead to other problems and is often a means of avoiding dealing with the issues that are contributing to the negative emotions.

Both Prescott and Hesselbrock said these findings could help clinicians identify individuals at risk for both major depression and alcohol dependence, with a focus on examining motives for drinking, as well as finding alternative strategies for coping with negative mood states.

I think it is important that family members understand that there is a real link between drinking and depression,” said Hesselbrock. “While the family member who is drinking may believe that they are doing so to cope with and relieve their symptoms of depression -and there is some pharmacological basis for this – they probably do not realize that their drinking will only prolong and exacerbate the negative feelings. For the person without alcohol dependence, reducing/stopping drinking will help reduce the negative effect/depression. For the person with major depression, stopping drinking will help reduce depression symptoms but not totally relieve the depression. It is a complex picture.

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health, Carman Trust, the W.M. Keck, John Templeton, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundations, and a USC Kellerman Fellowship.

Young-Wolff KC, Kendler KS, Sintov ND, Prescott CA. Mood-Related Drinking Motives Mediate the Familial Association Between Major Depression and Alcohol Dependence. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2009 May; doi:10.1111/j.1530-0277.2009.00978.x   [Abstract]



posted Thursday, 14 May 2009

 

Ilissa Gilmore
The South End

 


Dr David Rosenberg of Wayne State’s Medical school recently found that an abnormal amount of the chemical glutamate in several regions of the brain was a factor in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

 

Rosenberg and a team of WSU researchers collaborated with the University of Michigan and University of Toronto Hospital for Sick Kids in Toronto in an independent study that was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. Rosenberg was the principal investigator and all work was done at Wayne State.

 

More…



*Site Under Construction

posted Friday, 15 May 2009

Elsevier

An article published in the journal Bioscience Hypotheses suggests that our feelings in our lifetime can affect our children.

Dr Halabe Bucay suggests that a wide range of chemicals that our brain generates when we are in different moods could affect ‘germ cells’ (eggs and sperm), the cells that ultimately produce the next generation. Such natural chemicals could affect the way that specific genes are expressed in the germ cells (epigenetic inheritance), and hence how a child develops.

In his article Dr Alberto Halabe Bucay of Research Center Halabe and Darwich, Mexico, suggested that the hormones and chemicals resulting from happiness, depression and other mental states can affect our eggs and sperm, resulting in lasting changes in our children at the time of their conception.

Brain chemicals such as endorphins, and drugs, such as marijuana and heroin are known to have significant effects on sperm and eggs, altering the patterns of genes that are active in them.

It is well known, of course, that parental behavior affects children, and that the genes that a child gets from its parents help shape that child’s character.” said Dr Halabe Bucay. “My paper suggests a way that the parent’s psychology before conception can actually affect the child’s genes.

This is an intriguing idea,” commented Dr William Bains, Editor of Bioscience Hypotheses. “We wanted to publish it to see what other scientists thought, and whether others had data that could support or disprove it. That is what our journal is for, to stimulate debate about new ideas, the more groundbreaking, the better.

Bucay AH. Endorphins, personality, and inheritance: Establishing the biochemical bases of inheritance. Biosci Hypotheses. 2009;doi:10.1016/j.bihy.2009.03.003 [Abstract]



*Site Under Construction

posted Friday, 15 May 2009

By County Press Reporter – Friday, May 15, 2009

A TEACHING assistant at St George’s School is believed to have been suspended.
It follows an alleged disciplinary incident on April 30 involving a pupil and the boy’s parents are furious about the length of time it took social services to inform them.
Debbie Hawkins said she was told of the incident outside the school involving her 12-year-old son, George, who has autism, epilepsy and global developmental delay, nearly a week later, on May 6.
She was told the teaching assistant had been suspended the day after the incident for further investigations.
Mrs Hawkins and her husband, Glenn, were shocked to discover meetings between a number of authorities had been held prior to them being informed, particularly as Mrs Hawkins is a lunchtime supervisor and governor at the school.
“We feel let down and we want some answers because we should have been told about this much sooner,” said Mrs Hawkins.
Asked if a member of staff at the school had been suspended, the Isle of Wight Council said it could not comment on staff issues but said the matter was under investigation and proper procedures had been followed.
The police confirmed they had referred the complaint back to the Isle of Wight Council because further action was deemed inappropriate.
“George has been through a lot in the last few months and there are no excuses for the way this situation has been handled,” said Mrs Hawkins.

Source:   http://www.iwcp.co.uk/news/news/anger-after-incident-with-autistic-boy-26169.aspx



*Site Under Construction

posted Friday, 15 May 2009

House of Commons Chamber, Speaker's Table

Conservative MP John Bercow makes the case for his Special Educational Needs and Disability (Support) Bill, which was considered in the Commons. Skip related content

Through my work conducting a review into children’s speech, language and communication services for the government, I already knew that children with special educational needs (SEN) were frequently being let down.

But the degree to which this vulnerable group of children are being failed by the school system was brought into stark reality when I saw the government’s scandalous exclusion figures. Children with SEN are nine times more likely to be excluded than any other children.

So when I was drawn out of the private members’ ballot back in December it was a compelling opportunity to try to do something about the devastating lack of support that is leaving this vulnerable group of children unable to reach their full potential.

Far too few education professionals and schools have the appropriate skills, expertise and training to give the one in five children with an SEN the right support. There is no mandatory training for teachers in SEN issues, and despite their crucial role only new special educational needs co-ordinators (SENCOs) will be expected to demonstrate their SEN knowledge from September this year.

This step forward is due to campaigning by the National Autistic Society (NAS) and others, but, even so, many SENCOs will not be covered by the requirement. My SEN Bill is drafted by the NAS and backed by the Special Educational Consortium. It has its second reading in Parliament on Friday May 15 and it aims to improve training for teaching staff, introduce a new requirement that inspections should consider how well schools meet the needs of pupils with SEN and disabilities such as autism and reduce inappropriate exclusions of children with SEN.

The profound difficulties which children with SEN experience at school frequently go unheard and unrecognised, because their support is not reviewed and Ofsted inspections often ignore whether schools are meeting their responsibilities towards them.

This is simply unacceptable, and schools and education authorities must be made accountable for the support that they provide. As a result of pressure from the Bill, children’s secretary Ed Balls has already committed to look at how Ofsted inspections can have a greater focus on SEN, so my Bill aims to ensure this becomes a reality.

I urge as many of my colleagues as possible to join me in Parliament on Friday to ensure vulnerable children get the support they need to reach their full potential, because when the right help is in place at the right time, children with SEN can and do flourish in school.

Source:   http://uk.news.yahoo.com/11/20090514/tpl-john-bercow-mp-progress-on-special-e-0a1c1a1.html



*Site Under Construction

posted Sunday, 17 May 2009
Erasing Autism

Scientists are closing in on the genes linked to autism. So why is Ari
Ne’eman so worried?

By Claudia Kalb | NEWSWEEK

Illustration by Brian Cronin for Newsweek
It’s spring in Washington, and Ari Ne’e-man, with his navy suit and leather
brief-case on wheels, is in between his usual flurry of meetings. Ne’eman is
a master networker, a guy you’d think was born in a campaign office and bred
in the halls of the Capitol. He’s fluent in policy-speak and interacts
seamlessly with high-level officials (he’s just had lunch with the acting
vice chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) and inquisitive
reporters alike. He’s formal but sociable and has a well-timed sense of
humor. He also has a problem with velvet. I knew this about Ne’eman—he’d
mentioned it when we first started talking more than a year ago—but now, in
a D.C. coffee shop, he gets into the sensory details. His father used to
drive a car that had fuzzy velvet-like cushioning, and it made Ne’eman crazy
to sit in it. “I’d wince because I’d think about how it would feel to get
that under your fingernails,” he says. I think I see him shudder at the
memory.

Ari Ne’eman is 21 years old and has Asperger syndrome, a high-functioning
diag-nosis on the wide-ranging autism spectrum. Ne’eman’s velvet aversion is
triggered somewhere deep in his brain, a brain that he happens to relish. He
doesn’t want anybody to mess with or, God forbid, cure his Asperger’s. It’s
who he is, who he’s always been. It’s why he’s had ob-sessive interests
since toddlerhood. At 2½, he saw a dinosaur skeleton at New York’s American
Museum of Natural History and announced, “That’s a pterodactyl.” From there
he fixated on baseball, reciting players’ names and stats ad nauseam,
whether or not anyone was listening—a behavior experts call perseveration.
Later it was constitutional law. His friend Ben DeMarzo remembers driving
with Ne’eman and two other classmates one high-school weekend. DeMarzo and
the others wanted to listen to music—the Beatles were a favorite—but Ne’eman
had other plans. “Ari made us listen to Supreme Court oral arguments. It was
brutal,” DeMarzo tells me. He was outnumbered—how’d he win? I ask. DeMarzo
laughs. “Ari always wins,” he says.

He certainly puts up a fight. Ne’eman is officially studying political
science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, but he also runs
the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, a nonprofit he founded in 2006, the year
after he graduated from high school. The task he has taken on is daunting
and controversial: he wants to change the way the world views autism. Autism
is not a medical mystery that needs solving, he argues. It’s a disability,
yes, but it’s also a different way of being, and “neurodiversity” should be
accepted by society. Autistic people (he prefers this wording to “people
with autism,” a term many parents use, because he considers the condition
intrinsic to a person’s makeup) must be accommodated in the classroom and
workplace and helped to live independently as adults—and he is pushing to
make this happen for everyone on the spectrum. They should also be listened
to. “We’re having a national conversation about autism without the voices of
people who should be at the center of that conversation,” he says.

Ne’eman’s network has local chapters in 15 states, and he works closely with
organizations like the EEOC and the American Association of People With
Disabilities. Neurodiversity activists see their mission as a fight for
civil rights, and Ne’eman and others are willing to stir un-rest. “Ari’s
very straightforward,” says Lee Grossman, head of the Autism Society of
America, who supports many of Ne’eman’s efforts. “He tells it like it is
from his perspective.” Ne’eman has taken on powerful organizations,
specifically Autism Speaks, the largest science and advocacy group in the
country, be-cause he believes they rely on fearful stereotypes and focus
their research too heavily on what causes autism as opposed to improving
quality of life for autistic people today. Last year he helped stop an edgy
“ransom notes” ad campaign created by New York University’s Child Study
Center to raise awareness about autism. One said, “We have your son” and are
“driving him into a life of complete isolation.” It was signed “Asperger
Syndrome.” Ne’eman was appalled. “There’s a misperception that autism is
some thief in the night that takes a normal child and places an autistic
child in its place,” he says. “That’s not true.”

The autism spectrum itself, however, is a universe with multiple galaxies,
including nonverbal toddlers who bite themselves and college grads who can’t
tell the differ-ence between sarcasm and seriousness. This complexity leads
to passionate and conflicting viewpoints. Not everybody stands behind
Ne’eman, and some adamantly op-pose his views. One major area of contention:
scientific research, which includes the hunt for autism genes.
I knew Ne’eman had a surprising outlook on this and figured he’d have
something to say about the recent news that scientists have found common
gene variants that may account for up to 15 percent of all autism cases.
This is big in a disorder that varies so enormously from one individual to
the next. Environmental factors also play a role, but if scientists can test
for specific genes—most of which have yet to be discovered—they may be able
to intervene much sooner to help kids. One day they might even find a cure.
This is exciting for parents who want to understand the roots of the
disorder. Therapies—some helpful, some shams—vie for their attention and
their pocketbooks, and they’d welcome better, more targeted treatments. But
the new genetic advances concern Ne’eman. He doesn’t believe autism can be,
or should be, cured. His ultimate fear is this: a prenatal test for autism,
leading to “eugenic elimination.” If a test is developed one day, it will be
used, he says. And that means people like him might cease to exist.

When I press Ne’eman on genetic research—doesn’t it have some merit?—he says
he doesn’t oppose it outright, but he believes scientists must consider the
ethical implications of their work far more carefully. Already couples are
testing embryos for diseases like Huntington’s, then choosing to implant
only the healthy ones. And who can blame them? But autism isn’t a fatal
condition. Should people without the disorder be allowed to judge the
quality of life of someone who has it? “That is a message that the world
doesn’t want us here,” says Ne’eman, “and it devalues our lives.”

The prospect of no more Ari Ne’emans—whether you agree with him or not—is
haunting. Termination of fetuses with Down syndrome is routine today; given
the fear that autism inspires in parents, why wouldn’t it follow? And what
would our world be like without autism? The vast differences among
individuals on the spectrum make the notion even thornier: will parents
start demanding to know whether their fetus will be low- or
high-functioning? But it’s also impossible to ignore the parents who say
they’d do anything to free their children from isolation and pain. Some feel
so hopeless so much of the time, they do wonder in private if their children
would have been better off not born. And who can blame them?

Ne’eman battles a strange kind of image problem: his critics accuse him of
not really being autistic. His mother, Rina, is particularly sensitive about
this. “People who see Ari today have no idea where he’s been,” she says. As
a young child, Ne’eman was verbally precocious but socially challenged. “I
didn’t understand the people around me, and they didn’t understand me,” he
says. He was bullied and ostracized—back then he didn’t look at people; he
flapped his hands and paced incessantly (he still does both today); he
brought newspapers to elementary school as leisure reading. “I think the
word ‘freak’ may have come up,” he says. He was, at one point, segregated
from his peers in a special-ed school. That led to struggles with depression
and anxiety so severe he would pick at his face until it bled. I asked
Ne’eman how he manages all the professional mingling he does today. Small
talk makes him uncomfortable, but he’s learned to play along. Still, none of
it is easy. “You come out of a meeting and you’ve put on a mask, which
involves looking people in the eye, using certain mannerisms, certain
phrases,” he says. “Even if you learn to do it in a very seamless sort of
way, you’re still putting on an act. It’s a very ex-hausting act.”

He remembers being taught in social-skills training that when people are
happy they smile with all their teeth, and when they’re sad they wear
exaggerated frowns. “I was always wondering, ‘Why is everybody around me
neither happy or sad? They don’t have emotions’,” he says. When you’re
autistic, social interaction can be like a foreign language: no matter how
fluent you become, you’re never a native speaker. Katie Miller, a fellow
activist, jokes that “Ari is the only autistic we know whose special
interest and talent lies in networking.” But, she says, “it didn’t come
naturally. He’s learned it the way every-body else learns algebra.” Ne’eman
has a way of taming the stress he feels: he wears a tie because it puts a
soothing pressure on his neck. “It’s a good way of calming my anxiety,” he
says.
One of Ne’eman’s latest efforts is a new public-service announcement called
“No Myths,” which he helped create with the Dan Marino Foundation, a funder
of autism research. In it, Ne’eman appears in a red sweater and tie along
with others on the spectrum, including a man who speaks through a
communication device. “Our futures have not been stolen,” Ne’eman says. “Our
lives are not tragedies.” The message is clear: We stand before you. Don’t
make us go away.

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/197813