


Archive for January, 2011
 
 We trawl the world’s journals so you don’t have to:
Deep brain stimulation (Neurosurgical Focus).
Decision neuroscience (Journal of Economic Psychology).
Identity, place, and environmental behaviour (Journal of Environmental Psychology).
The natural and the normal in the history of sexuality (Psychology and Sexuality).
Integrating traditional healing practices into counselling and psychotherapy (Counselling Psychology Quarterly).
 
Article Date: 12 Oct 2010 – 3:00 PDT
The New York Times reports that “nearly 20 months after the Army began strengthening its suicide prevention program and working to remove the stigma attached to seeking psychological counseling, the suicide rate among active service members remains high and shows little sign of improvement. …
Read in Full:Â http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/204268.php
 
Members of the Washington, DC Metropolitan Area Chapter of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network will be demonstrating against Autism Speaks’ Walk for Autism on Saturday November 6th on the National Mall from 8:00am – 1:00pm. Autistic Activists and their allies across the disability community will carry signs and distribute fliers to walk participants between 14th & 15th Streets and Jefferson & Madison Drives. The National Mall demonstration is part of a series of demonstrations being held across the United States this autumn.
This demonstration is intended to draw walk participants’ attention to Autism Speaks’ lack of representation for those it claims to serve; its exploitative advertising and fundraising practices which compare having a child with Autism to being in a fatal situation, and the failure of Autism Speaks to spend money in ways that help Autistic people across the life-span.
Please join local Autistic Activists demonstrating against the upcoming Autism Speaks’ Walk for Autism Charity Fundraiser on November 6th. All prospective demonstration attendees are encouraged to bring their families and friends, the more people that support us the better! We will start to gather at 8am between 14th & 15th Streets and Jefferson & Madison Drives. All who plan to attend are encouraged to bring a demonstration sign with them, please make a large sign with a slogan such as: Nothing About Us Without Us!, I am A Person Not A Puzzle Piece!, or Autism Speaks Does Not Speak For Us!
All those who plan to attend the demonstration, please email asanwashingtondcmetro@yahoo.com so that we know who to expect!
 Zach Schmitt
Published: Monday, Oct. 11, 2010 / Updated: Monday, Oct. 11, 2010 03:36 PM
FORT MILL TOWNSHIP –Â
Sometimes Zach Schmitt walks alone.
“I am autistic,†Schmitt, 14, an eighth grader at Springfield Middle School, said. “In the years, I’ve been made fun of. Kids don’t pick me to be on their teams in gym.â€
He’s been insulted and falsely befriended, and he has the battle marks to prove it.
“It made me upset, not happy,†said Schmitt, a member of Boy Scout Troop 250. “I feel left out.â€
Last week, Schmitt held an autism awareness presentation that combined hands-on simulations and a pre-recorded message at Springfield, Gold Hill and Fort Mill middle schools as a way to earn Eagle Scout ranking. For Schmitt, the autism awareness message, expected to reach about 2,400 students, was more than meeting an Eagle ranking requirement: He wanted fellow students to take a walk in his life.
“I wanted to get kids to understand autistic kids, not make fun of them,†Schmitt said. “Treat them like they want to be treated.â€
During the pre-recorded presentation held Oct. 4, Schmitt taught his peers about autism.
“He said, ‘Did you know that people like Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton and Mozart had autism?’, Elkhyn Rivas, 13, recalled of Schmitt’s recorded message. “It made me think differently about people with autism.â€
Those who learn to cope with autism sometimes suffer because of others.
Read in Full:Â http://www.fortmilltimes.com/2010/10/11/1288385/bulling-schools-autism.html
 
ScienceDaily (Oct. 7, 2010) — A low Apgar score at birth is strongly associated with cerebral palsy in childhood, concludes a study from researchers in Norway published on the British Medical Journal website.
The Apgar score is a quick and simple way to assess a baby’s condition at birth. The baby is assessed on five simple criteria (complexion, pulse rate, reaction when stimulated, muscle tone, and breathing) on a scale from zero to two. The five values are then summed up to obtain a score from zero to 10.
Scores of 3 and below are generally regarded as critically low, 4 to 6 fairly low, and 7 to 10 generally normal.
Cerebral palsy is a rare disease, affecting two to three infants in every 1000 live born children in Western countries. Recent studies have found a strong link between low Apgar score and cerebral palsy in children born to term or with normal birth weight, whereas studies in children with a low birth weight or born preterm have shown conflicting results.
Read in Full:Â http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101007210544.htm
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A 1997 letter to the British Medical Journal describes an innovative surgical anesthetic used by Arabs in the middle ages that involved placing a sponge soaked in opium, hashish and scopolamine over the patient’s face.
From the ingredients, the patient was probably aware of little, let alone any pain, and it appropriately features in the dreamy Middle Eastern classic, Arabian Nights.
Editor—Anthony John Carter’s review of sedative plants skipped several centuries and did not mention the “Arabic anaesthetic sponge.†Opium infusion was known to Arab clinicians throughout the middle ages and was used commonly to relieve pain associated with inflammation or procedures such as tooth extraction and reduction of fractures. Poppy seeds were used in oral perioperative analgesic syrups or paste; their boiled solution was often used for inhalation.
Read in Full:Â http://mindhacks.com/2010/10/08/the-arabic-anaesthetic-sponge/
 
To evolutionary psychologists, the noise made by gorillas, chimps and bonobos when you tickle their feet is no laughing matter. These distinctive vocalisations suggest that rather than evolving separately, laughter evolved in a shared common ancestor before becoming tailored in each primate species, including humans.
To find support for this idea, Diana Szameitat and her colleagues scanned the brains of 18 men and women whilst they listened to the sound of human tickle-induced laughter as well as laughter prompted by joy and taunting. The researchers found a ‘double-dissociation’ – the tickle laughter provoked extra activity in the secondary auditory cortex, likely reflecting the acoustical complexity of this kind of laughter, whereas the joy and taunting laughter prompted more activity in the medial frontal cortex, a region associated with social and emotional processing. These differences were observed whether the participants were tasked with categorising the laughter they heard, or merely with counting the number of laughs. The finding suggests that humans produce and process an evolutionarily ‘old’ form of tickle-based laughter, which is shared with non-human primates, as well as a newer, more emotionally sophisticated variant.
Jan
22
 
ScienceDaily (Oct. 7, 2010) — An alarming number of adolescents already battling eating disorders are also intentionally cutting themselves, and health-care providers may be failing to diagnose many instances of such self-injury, according to a new study from Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.
The researchers found that 40.8 percent of patients with eating disorders in their study had documented incidents of intentionally harming themselves, most often by cutting and burning. What’s more, the study suggests that inadequate clinical screening might mean the count should be much higher.
“These are very high numbers, but they’re still conservative estimates,” said the study’s lead author, Rebecka Peebles, MD, who was an instructor in pediatrics at Stanford when the research was conducted and is joining the faculty at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Peebles noted that clinicians aren’t routinely asking about this activity. “We ask 97 percent of children 12 years and up if they smoke cigarettes; we need to get that good with screening for self-injurious behavior,” she said.
Read in Full:Â http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101007184116.htm
 
Article Date: 07 Oct 2010 – 9:00 PDT
75% of people with neurological, mental and substance abuse disorders remain untreated worldwide, according to estimates by WHO (World Health Organization). This includes almost 95 million people with depression and over 25 million with epilepsy. WHO hopes that its simplified new treatment guidelines, called The Intervention Guide may help promote better management of depression, substance abuse disorders, epilepsy, well as a number of mental disorders in a general practice setting.
WHO explains that the Intervention Guide, consisting of evidence-based guidelines, is aimed at doctors, nurses and other health care providers who are not specialized in mental health, to help them accurately diagnose and manage patients.
Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General, the World Health Organization, said:
In a key achievement, the Intervention guide transforms a world of expertise and clinical experience, contributed by hundreds of experts, into less than 100 pages of clinical wisdom and succinct practical advice.
Being able to diagnose and treat millions of currently neglected patients in a primary health care (general practice) system will raise the number of individuals who can access care considerably, WHO writes in a communiqué.
Read in Full: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/203897.php



 