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Archive for January 22nd, 2011

 

On 6 December 2010, the Government announced that from 2013, Disability Living Allowance (DLA) will be replaced by a new benefit called the ‘Personal Independence Payment’ (PIP).

This is expected to be for working-age disabled adults only. However, the Government is reviewing whether to replace child DLA too.

What do the changes mean?

Like DLA, the new benefit will continue to be payable to people whether they are in or out of work, and be non-means tested.

We are concerned about how the assessment will work for the new benefit, as well as about proposals for regular re-assessments.

We welcome some of the indications from the Government that the specific needs of people with autism will be taken into account in the assessment of the new benefit.

For example, the consultation document on the changes emphasises that in ensuring eligibility for the mobility component of the new benefit, ability to get around should look at more than a person’s ability to walk and also include their ability to plan a journey.

However, we urge the Government to make sure that it properly involves people with autism in redesigning the assessment process to ensure that the needs of this group are comprehensively covered by the assessment.

We are also worried about proposals for re-assessment to become more commonplace, as this may cause unnecessary anxiety for people with long-term conditions, such as autism. 

Moreover, the proposals set out a plan to reduce the number of bands of benefit payment and should be seen in the context of the Government’s plans to cut the projected spend on DLA for working-age disabled people by 20 per cent over the next three years.

We are therefore concerned about whether the new assessment could be used to cut the number of people eligible for the benefit.

What the NAS is doing and what you can do to help

The NAS will be responding to the consultation on the proposed changes and we will be working on the legislation on this issue as it passes through Parliament.

If you would like to help us with our response, please email policy@nas.org.uk

You can also respond to the consultation directly. Go to www.dwp.gov.uk/consultations/2010/dla-reform.shtml to download the full consultation document. Please copy policy@nas.org.uk to any response.

Source:  http://www.autism.org.uk/en-gb/news-and-events/news-from-the-nas/government-announces-changes-to-dla.aspx



 

Children and young people with autism and their families offer advice on coping with Christmas.

A group of families with children affected by autism have got together to produce a film offering advice on dealing with the Christmas period, and are inviting other families from around the UK to get involved and add to the discussion.

The film is live at www.autism.org.uk/christmastalk. Parents and carers and people affected by autism have the opportunity to comment on the video, upload their own tips for Christmas or participate via Facebook.

Young people from the families that are featured attend a social group in Bristol provided by the National Autistic Society (NAS), the UK’s leading charity for people affected by autism, their families and carers.

Most children and young people in the UK look forward to the festive season, the family get-togethers, decorations, presents, Christmas dinner and generally being away from school, but all of these can cause huge anxiety to people with autism. Change to routine can be very traumatic and lights and noise can cause sensory overload that can be unbearable. Many have dietary issues that are magnified during this period. The shops are crammed with people, adding to their anxiety and extended family members lack understanding of the disability.

So how do parents and carers cope and manage to have a trauma-free Christmas that can be enjoyed by the whole family?

Jane Smith explains on the film: “Decorations can be upsetting for my son. We cannot have much decoration and the tree has to be set out a certain way. He does not like balloons because he knows they pop and he cannot handle the noise. It can be upsetting for other members of the family who would like more decorations but we cannot risk it for the anxiety it might cause.”

Read in Full:  http://www.autism.org.uk/news-and-events/news-from-the-nas/talk-about-christmas.aspx



 

LEGO has created a one-off edition of Buzz Lightyear exclusively for Argos – and now Buzz fans have a once in a lightyear chance to win him and help raise money for the NAS!

The 5ft model of Buzz, as featured on ITV’s Daybreak, is made entirely out of LEGO and took LEGO’s expert builders nearly 150 hours and 32,980 pieces to create.

Now there is a silent auction to win LEGO Buzz and the highest bidder will take Buzz home for Christmas. All proceeds will be split evenly between The National Autistic Society and Teenage Cancer Trust.

The auction runs until Christmas Eve. Just visit www.bigplay.co.uk/buzz to make your silent bid and Buzz could be yours!

Source:  http://www.autism.org.uk/news-and-events/news-from-the-nas/win-a-lego-buzz-lightyear.aspx



 

The Young Campaigners Group have released a preview of their new film, ‘Open your mind’, as part of our You Need To Know campaign. The video is about the group’s experiences of writing a new charter to tell decision makers what they think needs to change to make mental health services for children and young people with autism better. The full film will be released in early 2011. Watch the film here.

The Young Campaigners Group is a group of young people aged 13-19 with autism who have experience of using mental health services in the UK. They’ve played a really important part in our You Need To Know campaign, which aims to make sure children with autism receive the right support from child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS). Several members of the group attended the campaign launch at the House of Commons, where they spoke about their experiences of CAMHS.

We’ll have a lot of exciting news from the group over the next few months. For all the latest news about the You Need To Know campaign and the Young Campaigners Group, follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Source:  http://www.autism.org.uk/news-and-events/news-from-the-nas/watch-a-sneak-peak-of-the-new-young-campaigners-film.aspx



 

Americans’ danger detectors are cranked up way too high these days, but we don’t have to be held hostage by our anxiety, according to a new book on coping with stress by a Northwestern Medicine psychologist.

The book, by Northwestern’s Mark Reinecke, is titled “Little Ways to Keep Calm and Carry On: Twenty Lessons for Managing Worry, Anxiety and Fear.” He offers an easy to understand strategy, based on recent psychological research and cognitive behavioral therapy, to reduce anxiety and live a happier, less fretful life.

“We live in an age of anxiety, whether it’s economic worries or potential terrorist threats, or how you are going to care for your aging mother,” says Reinecke, head of psychology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and Northwestern Memorial Hospital. “There are a whole range of things that come at us as a society that make us feel more anxious than at any time in our recent history.”

One chapter in his book discusses the realistic assessment of whether a bad thing will happen. “You should prepare for the most likely scenario, not the worst case, because it is statistically very unlikely,” advises Reinecke, also professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Feinberg. “You should ask what is the probability of a bad event happening, how will you cope, are you able to protect yourself?”

He suggests whitewater rafting as a metaphor for effective coping. “When you are thrown from the boat, you cover your head, protect what’s important and go with the flow,” Reinecke says. “You let the current take you to a calm eddy on the side of the river.”

Anxiety is a natural and adaptive emotion from an evolutionary perspective. It protects us from perceived threats, he notes. It leads to neurochemical and cognitive changes, which prepare us for fight or flight.

“The problem occurs when the sensitivity of our perceptual threat detector system gets cranked up too high,” Reinecke says. “We perceive many things as threats that are really not threats at all.” 

Read in Full:  http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/210185.php



 

Article Date: 07 Dec 2010 – 1:00 PST

It is unlikely that different types of depression (primary versus secondary, diverse baseline scores on HAM-D) can be combined to one single disease called Major Depression. When testing the efficacy of antidepressants or psychotherapy, clinicians should make an attempt to specify the subtypes of depression and to combine antidepressants and psychotherapy (which should be much more mode-specific) in a sequential approach.

In the current issue of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Professor Per Bech (Hillerod, DK) presents an innovative method for classifying depression in relation to response to treatment.

The official DSM-IV diagnosis of major depression, which is based on a cluster of symptoms, does not provide any information about the specific symptoms presented by the patient in question (e.g. typical versus atypical depression) and no information about aetiological factors (e.g. primary depression or depression secondary to stress or another medical condition). Medical disorders are conventionally classified on the basis of symptomatology, pathophysiology and aetiology. As the pathophysiological mechanism in depression is still unknown, the validity of DSM-IV major depression as a medical disorder is problematic. The severe primary depressive conditions (psychotic and bipolar depression) are considered to be the most typically medical disorders due to their genetic loadings but these conditions are excluded from the placebo-controlled trials of antidepressants.

Read in Full:  http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/210406.php



 

Article Date: 07 Dec 2010 – 2:00 PST

Papers from Archives of General Psychiatry for release December 6 include:

  • Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy appears to be similar to maintenance antidepressant medication for preventing relapse or recurrence among patients successfully treated for depression (see news release below)
  • The rate of depression treatment increased between 1998 and 2007 but at a slower rate than during the previous decade, and the percentage of patients treated with psychotherapy continued to decline (see news release below)
  • Many patients with depression also report psychotic-like symptoms, such as hearing voices or believing they are being spied on or plotted against, and those who do are less likely to respond to treatment (Online First, see news release below)
  • Women with a family history of alcoholism or alcohol problems appear to have 50 percent higher odds of being obese, with similar trends observed for men, according to an analysis of data from more than 39,000 U.S. adults
  • Men who have lower levels of antisocial behavior are more likely to get married, and their tendency to refrain from crime, irritability, lack of remorse and similar behaviors appears to be accentuated by their marriage, according to a longitudinal study of 289 twin pairs

Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2010; 67[12]:1301-1308, 67[12]: 1309-1315, 67[12]:1265-1273, doi:10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2010.179.

Source
Archives of General Psychiatry

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/210415.php



 

Allan Schwartz, LCSW, Ph.D. Updated: Dec 8th 2010

Why is recovery from an addiction so very difficult for people? Despite all the efforts made by families and treatment procedures, too many people relapse. In fact, they go through many relapses and other people end up blaming the person out of frustration and anger. The fact it that addictions are extremely complicated and involve more than just ending the use of a substance. They do not occur in a vacuum.

Rather, they are the result of what is referred to as the Bio-Psycho-Social Spheres of influence.

The biological sphere includes brain chemistry, neurology, hormones other physiological factors.
 
The psychological sphere has to do with an individual’s psychiatric diagnosis such as. Examples are the psychoses including schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, depression and bipolar disorders and the personality, among others.

Finally, the is the social sphere. Among these are family environment, neighborhood, economy, family finances and many others.

If all of these influences are not treated, the likelyhood of relapse is quite high.

Today, addictions are characterized by the fact that people are using many substances, from alcohol to methamphetamine, prescription pain killers, cocaine, etc. It is important to stress the fact the list of addictions includes illnesses such as the eating disorders eating disorders.

Read in Full:  http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=41339&cn=14



 

Article Date: 08 Dec 2010 – 2:00 PST

People with psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, are 12 times more likely to commit suicide than average, according to research released by King’s Health Partners.

The research found that the rate of suicide was highest in the first year following diagnosis (12 times national average) and that high risk persisted – remaining four times greater than the general population ten years after diagnosis, a time when there may be less intense clinical monitoring of risk.

Neither the risk of suicide nor the long-term risk of suicide, as compared to the general population, have been studied and measured in this way before. And the findings show that doctors must always remain vigilant when assessing a patient’s risk of suicide regardless of time since first diagnosis.

A key aim of the study was to challenge the widely held view that “10-15% of people suffering psychotic disorders are likely to commit suicide”¹. This study shows that these figures, largely derived from research in the 1970s, are misleading as they use crude measurement techniques² and do not accurately measure risk over a lifetime. Today’s findings indicate a lower overall risk, but more persistent danger of suicide among this patient group over a lifetime.

Read in Full:  http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/210558.php



 Trauma

Article Date: 08 Dec 2010 – 2:00 PST

Post-traumatic stress syndrome- when a severely stressful event triggers exaggerated and chronic fear – affects nearly 8 million people in the United States and is hard to treat. In a preclinical study, Northwestern Medicine scientists have for the first time identified the molecular cause of the debilitating condition and prevented it from occurring by injecting calming drugs into the brain within five hours of a traumatic event.

Northwestern researchers discovered the brain becomes overly stimulated after a traumatic event causes an ongoing, frenzied interaction between two brain proteins long after they should have disengaged.

“It’s like they keep dancing even after the music stops,” explained principal investigator Jelena Radulovic, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and Dunbar Scholar at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. When newly developed research drugs MPEP and MTEP were injected into the hippocampus, the calming drugs ended “the dance.”

“We were able to stop the development of exaggerated fear with a simple, single drug treatment and found the window of time we have to intervene,” Radulovic said. “Five hours is a huge window to prevent this serious disorder.” Past studies have tried to treat the extreme fear responses, after they have already developed, she noted.

The study, conducted with mice, was published in the journal Biological Psychiatry.

An exaggerated fear disorder can be triggered by combat, an earthquake, a tsunami, rape or any traumatic psychological or physical event.

“People with this syndrome feel danger in everything that surrounds them,” Radulovic said. “They are permanently alert and aroused because they expect something bad to happen. They have insomnia; their social and family bonds are severed or strained. They avoid many situations because they are afraid something bad will happen. Even the smallest cues that resemble the traumatic event will trigger a full-blown panic attack.”

In a panic attack, a person’s heart rate shoots up, they may gasp for breath, sweat profusely and have a feeling of impending death.

Many people bounce back to normal functioning after stressful or dangerous situations have passed. Others may develop an acute stress disorder that goes away after a short period of time. But some go on to develop post-traumatic stress syndrome, which can appear after a time lag.

The stage is set for post-traumatic stress disorder after a stressful event causes a natural flood of glutamate, a neurotransmitter that excites the neurons. The excess glutamate dissipates after 30 minutes, but the neurons remain frenzied. The reason is the glutamate interacts with a second protein (Homer1a), which continues to stimulate the glutamate receptor, even when glutamate is gone.

For the study, Northwestern scientists first subjected mice to a one-hour immobilization, which is distressing to them but not painful. Next, the mice explored the inside of a box and, after they perceived it as safe, received a brief electric shock. Usually after a brief shock in the box, the animals develop normal fear conditioning. If they are returned to the box, they will freeze in fear about 50 percent of the time. However, after the second stressful experience, these mice froze 80 to 90 percent of the time.

The animals’ exaggerated chronic fear response continued for at least one month and resembles post-traumatic stress disorder in humans, Radulovic said.

Read in Full:  http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/210561.php