Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on February 25, 2010
Spending time in today’s hospitals can have many downsides.
Although it seems counterintuitive, hospitalizations are linked to a host of medical errors and unintended consequences, including nosocomial (hospital-acquired) infection and, as discovered by new research, acute cognitive decline.
A paper in the current issue of JAMA reviews how older patients hospitalized for acute care or a critical illness are more likely to experience cognitive decline compared to older adults who are not hospitalized.
A large proportion of patients who are hospitalized for acute care or care of a critical illness are older adults. Some studies have suggested that many survivors of critical illness experience long-term cognitive impairment, but these studies did not measure cognitive function before a critical illness, according to background information in the article.
William J. Ehlenbach, M.D., M.Sc., of the University of Washington, Seattle, and colleagues analyzed data from a study that was conducting cognitive testing on older adults, and examined administrative data from hospitalizations to determine whether hospitalizations for acute illness or critical illness were associated with cognitive decline and dementia.
The study included data from 1994 through 2007 on 2,929 individuals, 65 years old and older without dementia at the beginning of the study. Cognition was measured with the Cognitive Abilities Screening Instrument (CASI) every 2 years at follow-up visits, and those with scores below a certain point underwent a clinical examination for dementia.
During an average follow-up of 6.1 years, 1,601 participants had no hospitalizations while enrolled in the study; 1,287 study participants were hospitalized for noncritical illness; and 41 participants were hospitalized for a critical illness.
There were 146 cases of dementia among those never hospitalized during the study. Among those experiencing 1 or more noncritical illness hospitalizations but no critical illness hospitalizations during study participation, there were 228 cases of dementia.
There were 5 cases of dementia among those experiencing 1 or more critical illness hospitalizations during the study.
The researchers found that patients who had a hospitalization for an acute care or critical illness had lower CASI scores at followup compared to those who were not hospitalized. Also, after adjusting for various factors, patients hospitalized for a noncritical illness had a 40 percent higher risk of dementia.
Patients hospitalized for a critical illness also had a higher risk of dementia, but the result was not significant, possibly because of the small number of participants in this group.
“The mechanism of this association is uncertain. Hospitalization may be a marker for cognitive decline or dementia that has not been diagnosed,†the authors write.
“These results also could suggest that factors associated with acute illness, and to a greater degree with critical illness, may be causally related to cognitive decline.”
The researchers add that the mechanisms through which critical illness may contribute to neurocognitive impairment are multiple, with evidence suggesting that hypoxemia (decreased partial pressure of oxygen in blood), delirium, hypotension, glucose dysregulation, systemic inflammation, and sedative and analgesic medications all may potentially play a role.
“Further studies are needed to better understand the factors associated with acute and critical illness that may contribute to cognitive impairment,†the authors conclude.
Source: JAMA and Archives Journals
http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/02/25/hospitalization-associated-with-mental-decline/11707.html
 
James Dean
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on February 25, 2010Â
Professor Michael Fitzgerald, MD, of Dublin’s Trinity College, has examined the lives of notable achievers including Thomas Edison, Kurt Cobain, Oscar Wilde, Lord Byron, Jules Verne, Che Guevara, James Dean, Clark Gable, Pablo Picasso, Mark Twain and Sir Walter Raleigh. Based on his research, the professor believes all these high achievers had or displayed symptoms of ADHD.
Professor Fitzgerald says: “The same genes that are involved in ADHD can also be associated with risk-taking behavior. While these urges can be problematic or even self-destructive – occasionally leading people into delinquency, addiction or crime – they can also lead to earth-shattering breakthroughs in the fields of the art, science and exploration.
“People with ADHD have symptoms of inattentiveness, but they often also have a capacity to hyper-focus on a narrow area that is of particular interest to them. Clearly ADHD is not a guarantee of genius, but the focused work rate that it produces may enable creative genius to flourish.
“For example, Kurt Cobain – who we know was prescribed the anti-hyperactivity drug Ritalin as a child – had an amazing ability to focus on writing music.â€
Professor Fitzgerald’s research has led him to identify ADHD as a recurring factor in the creative genius of many historic figures.
He argues: “The best evidence we have suggests that Lord Byron had ADHD. He had a turbulent life – at school he was often in trouble, and as an adult he engaged in criminal activities and was eventually forced to flee the country.
“But he was also the greatest lyric poet in the English language. Similarly, Sir Walter Raleigh was a reckless character. But his insatiable quest for new stimulation and risk-taking behavior also made him a famous soldier, adventurer and explorer.
“There is a considerable stigma surrounding ADHD, and people tend to focus on the negatives of the disorder. But we should balance this by remembering that ADHD can, in the right circumstances, be a fertilizer helping to generate a seed of untapped potential in a person.â€
Source: The Royal College of Psychiatrists
http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/02/25/adhd-may-be-associated-with-creative-genius/11713.html
 
Sandy Gautam
I have earlier written about the entrepreneurial roller-coaster and how when entrepreneurs are in a happy mood, they focus on long-term vision related creativity; while when they are in negative mood they focus on the task at hand. I had also tried to relate this to prevention and promotion focus
and weave it in the narrative of preventive focus as depressive and promotion focus as being manic in nature.
Another bit of research extends the thesis and adds to our knowledge base. This new article by Winkielman et al suggest that people in sad mood tend to value familiarity whereas those in a happy mood are more open and welcoming of novelty.
Here is the abstract of the study:
People often prefer familiar stimuli, presumably because familiarity signals safety. This preference can occur with merely repeated old stimuli, but it is most robust with new but highly familiar rototypes of a known category (beauty-in-averageness effect). However, is familiarity always warm? Tuning accounts of mood hold that positive mood signals a safe environment, whereas negative mood signals an unsafe environment. Thus, the value of familiarity should depend on mood. We show that compared with a sad mood, a happy mood eliminates the preference for familiar stimuli, as shown in measures of self-reported liking and physiological measures of affect (electromyographic indicator of spontaneous smiling). The basic effect of exposure on preference and its modulation by mood were most robust for prototypes (category averages). All this occurs even though prototypes might be more familiar in a happy mood. We conclude that mood changes the hedonic implications of familiarity cues.
The authors reasoning is as follows:
Happy or sad mood signal the safety of the environment.
Much psychological research points out that one signal of environmental safety or danger is an individual’s mood (e.g., Clore, Schwarz, & Conway, 1994; Schwarz, 2002). Bad mood signals a problem, tuning individuals toward safety concerns, whereas good mood signals that an environment is benign. Tuning accounts assume that mood adjusts cognitive and affective reactions so that they best serve the individual in the specific context.
In a safe environment, one can experiment or value novelty. In an unsafe environmental it makes sense to stick to tried and proven things.
After all, familiarity is only a heuristic cue to safety. Thus, as with any heuristic cue, its validity and hedonic meaning vary by context (Hertwig, Herzog, Schooler, & Reimer, 2008). Specifically, the familiarity-positivity link should depend on whether individuals are tuned toward safety concerns. Familiarity should be valued in an unsafe environment, but less so in a benign environment (e.g., Bornstein, 1989). Analogously, in a strange city a familiar face elicits a warm glow, whereas locally the same face prompts a yawn. Numerous studies (and parents) have observed that in unsafe environments infants are neophobic, but in safe settings, they are less so (Shore, 1994). Similarly, in multiple species, stress increases neophobia, whereas comfort reduces it.
Thus they hypothesize that sad mood should lead to mare liking for familiarity while happy mood should lead to novelty preference. They do some clever experimentation and get exactly the same result.
 
By PEG TYRE
Published: February 24, 2010
NOAH LASCANO, 8, had a problem: His teachers couldn’t read his handwriting. His homework became a frustrating exercise in writing once, and then, at the teacher’s request, writing again, just for legibility.
His brother, James, 5, was struggling in kindergarten — even drawing stick figures was a task. When his mother, Paula Lascano, tried to cajole him into completing a few workbook assignments, he reported that “his hand got too tired.â€
Like many parents, Ms. Lascano decided it was time for help, so 10 months ago she hired Casey Halper, a pediatric occupational therapist, to work first with James, and then with Noah, once a week. The boys manipulated stiff green putty, put pegs into boards, created chains of pennies and plastic connectors and wrote the alphabet — again and again.
These days, many little fingers are being drilled. Twenty-five years ago, pediatric occupational therapists primarily served children with severe disabilities like spina bifida, autism or cerebral palsy. Nowadays, these therapists are just as focused on helping children without obvious disabilities to hold a pencil.
In affluent neighborhoods in and around New York, occupational therapists have taken their place next to academic tutors, psychologists, private coaches and personal trainers — the army that often stands behind academically successful students.
Tim Nanof, legislative manager for the American Occupational Therapy Association, which has 38,000 members, said it’s hard to know exactly how many children are receiving these services. But parents, pediatricians, educators and early childhood experts agree that plenty of able-bodied children are receiving occupational therapy.
“Twenty years ago, you could find O.T.’s working with children at hospitals or schools for the blind or the deaf,†said Christine Berg, who oversees the curriculum for the Program in Occupational Therapy at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. “Now, many pediatric O.T.’s see their role as promoting fitness and enhancing kids’ performance in school.â€
Pediatric occupational therapy may be something like Pilates for the pint-size set — a regime of techniques that promise to bestow unique benefits on the practitioner. Or, like the increase in neuropsychological testing and in the use of drugs to enhance a child’s attention, the increase in therapy could suggest something may have gone awry in schools, in our level of academic expectations or perhaps in childhood itself.
“On one hand, I think it’s perfectly in line with the contemporary trend for parents and educators to seek high-priced specialists to treat the routine problems of childhood,†said Dr. Philippa Gordon, a popular pediatrician in Park Slope, Brooklyn, who is a medical adviser to the highly opinionated Park Slope Parents Web site. “On the other hand, I see that early intervention can keep little problems from becoming big ones.â€
Linda Florin, who runs a private concierge service in Manhattan, paid a therapist $125 a week for nearly three years to help her son, Wyatt, now a first grader at Columbia Prep, improve his hand strength and control a pencil. She says it was money well spent. “School isn’t easy and it gets harder as they get older,†Ms. Florin said. “I wanted him to be able to keep up with everyone else.â€
She also said the stigma is gone: “Back when I was a child, seeing an O.T.? Forget it. That was for kids who had spinal cord injuries.†Last year, she said, so many friends from her social circle were taking their children to occupational therapists that it seemed like a part of normal childhood.
“Seeing an O.T. was once an admission that something was seriously wrong with your child,†said Paula McCreedy, who, with her partner, Prudence Heisler, opened a branch of their busy Greenwich Village practice in Brooklyn Heights in part to meet the growing demand of private paying families seeking therapy. These days, she said, “many parents are finding that pediatric occupational therapists can help their children to be the best that they can be.â€
In Manhattan, the brutally competitive nursery and kindergarten admissions process is leading many parents to sign up their toddlers for therapy. “Preschool admissions tests loom large,†said Margie Becker-Lewin, an occupational therapist on the Upper West Side. “In many cases, parents know there is nothing wrong with their child, but they feel caught in the middle.â€
Read More …Â http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/fashion/25Therapy.html?pagewanted=2&ref=health
Sir Richard Branson – Dyslexic and Founder of Virgin Enterprises
Â
How can a person improve their reading and writing skills when they have dyslexia? The following tips may be of help:
Try using a computer when you write things. Programs such as Microsoft Word fix spelling and grammar. When you type words incorrectly and you have done a spelling check, write down the words with correct spellings on a separate paper. Then start to memorize it. It’s a good way to learn how a word is written.
Check to see if your school offers free testing. They may be able to refer you to a group that can help people with dyslexia learn new ways to deal with it. There are certain methods that can help in studying, test-taking, and writing. Discuss the issue with your teachers or professors; most are very understanding and allow extra time for test taking.
You must document the problem to be eligible for services. Dyslexia is not one problem. It can be many problems, which can change the way you read and write. Get a full diagnostic work up, through your local public school district or county special education team.
If you or your parents have medical insurance you should also get a thorough eye and audiological (hearing) evaluation. (Ideally this would include central auditory processing testing). Ask that not only a psychologist but a licensed speech/language pathologist look at your records and do a full evaluation to help determine your learning style.
If you are going off to a state college or junior college in the U.S., they should have services. There is a U.S. federal law that protects students with handicapping conditions (PL 94-142) and allows them to get free and appropriate services. (Don’t forget the joy of listening to a good book on tape. You may be eligible for “reading services from the blind and dyslexic†in Bryn Mawr, PA. They can record your textbooks for you!)
Simply changing the color of the paper can help a great deal with reading. In general, you can use color transparencies laid over the printed page, or use glasses with colored lenses. Different colors work for different people.
Source:Â http://psychcentral.com/lib/2007/dyslexia-improving-reading-and-writing-skills/
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By Shaun Heasley
Massachusetts lawmakers are moving forward on legislation mandating that schoolchildren with autism be trained to deal with bullying.
The effort comes after a survey released last year found that 9 in 10 children with autism in the state experienced bullying at school.
In addition to requiring training for students with autism, the anti-bullying measure now under consideration by Massachusetts legislators would outlaw bullying at school, at related events and via school computers. The legislation would also require schools to establish plans to prevent bullying and intervene if it does occur.
Further, the proposed law goes so far as to prohibit bullying conducted in person or online outside of school, but which “affects the school environment.â€
Read in Full:Â http://www.disabilityscoop.com/2010/02/24/bullying-bill-autism/7121/
 
Cyberbullying: A Growing Problem
ScienceDaily (Feb. 22, 2010) — Around 10 percent of all adolescents in grades 7-9 are victims of internet bullying. ‘This type of bullying can be more serious than conventional bullying. At least with conventional bullying the victim is left alone on evenings and weekends’, says Ann Frisén, Professor of Psychology at the University of Gothenburg.
‘Victims of internet bullying — or cyberbullying — have no refuge. Victims may be harassed continuously via SMS and websites, and the information spreads very quickly and may be difficult to remove. In addition, it is often difficult to identify the perpetrator.’
Ann Frisén’s research concerns body image, identity development and different types of bullying among children and adolescents. She is also part of an EU network of researchers studying cyberbullying and is since 1 January the national coordinator of this type of research.
What is cyberbullying?
‘Cyberbullying occurs when new technologies such as computers and mobile phones are used to harass or bully somebody. The perpetrators often use SMS, e-mail, chat rooms and Facebook to spread their message.’ One example of this is the Facebook group ‘Vi som hatar Stina Johansson’ (Those of us who hate Stina Johansson).
‘This Facebook group was very difficult to remove. It took Stina’s parents almost one whole month’, says Frisén.
A clear link to school life
Who are the victims? ‘Around 10 percent of all adolescents in grades 7-9 are victims of cyberbullying. There is a clear connection to school life — it usually calms downs in the summer.
The perpetrator is almost always from the same school as the victim. ‘It is a lot easier to be a perpetrator on the internet since it enables you to act anonymously. This also makes it possible for a weaker person to bully a stronger, which is uncommon in conventional bullying’, says Frisén.
Blurring of boundaries is another important factor:
‘In these contexts, people take liberties they normally wouldn’t. For example, nobody would ever think of starting a magazine called “Those of us who hate Stina Johansson”‘. So how can cyberbullying among children and adolescents be prevented?
Parents have an important role, according to Frisén:
‘Adults shouldn’t be so naive about what they put out about themselves on the internet, for example pictures. Kids get inspired by what adults do. In addition, it’s good if parents show interest and ask their children to show them which sites they like to visit. But it’s usually not a good idea to forbid them from visiting certain websites; they should instead teach them how to act when they are there.
‘It is also important not to blame victimised children, since it’s really not their fault. Our job is instead to help them end the harassment.’ Frisén feels that people in Sweden generally are a bit naive when it comes to these issues:
‘All school children in the UK are taught to “zip it, block it and flag it” — don’t share information, block contacts and tell an adult!’
Source:Â http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100222104939.htm
We may think it only affects boys. But the female variant is often much harder to spot – and that means thousands of girls may be going undiagnosed. Jeremy Laurance reports
With hindsight, Nicky Clark says early signs of autism were present in both her children. The elder one, though very bright, had a love of routine and was not interested in fantasy games like other children. The younger one liked to line things up in rows and would watch the same video clip over and over again for hours. When she got the diagnosis it came as a huge shock, as it would be for any parent. But there was an additional reason why it was unexpected – both her children are girls.
Autism is an overwhelmingly male diagnosis – it has been described as the “extreme male brain”. Boys with the diagnosis outnumber girls by between 10 and 15 to one. The typical high functioning male, if he is lucky, finds a secure post in a university where he can use his exceptional powers for academic study, shunning most social contact as the “eccentric professor”, and relaxing at home with his train set in the attic.
But in the developing story of autism – interest in which has increased hugely in the last decade – girls have been neglected. That omission will be remedied this week with the first conference on autistic spectrum disorders in women and girls. One aim will be to examine whether the condition has been underdiagnosed in females – and what links there may be with eating disorders.
According to Janet Treasure, professor of psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College, London, around a fifth of girls diagnosed with anorexia have autistic spectrum features and 20 to 30 per cent may have exhibited rigidity and perfectionism in childhood. Anorexia has been called the female Asperger’s (the mild version of autism).
Professor Treasure says: “When I was training at the Maudsley 30 years ago, anorexic girls were treated as little more than malfunctioning machines. The view was that it was an illness that mainly affected middle-class intelligent white girls and was little more than an awkward phase of adolescence. Today there has been a huge change in the understanding of the disease. People with eating disorders find it difficult to change self-set rules and learnt behaviour once fixed in the brain. They also see the world in close up as if looking through a zoom lens, and get lost in the detail. There is a strong similarity to autistic spectrums.”
She will tell the conference that there are two aspects to the link. First, people with autistic spectrum disorder are more at risk of getting anorexia. “If girls are obsessed with systems and rules then the rules governing eating become very attractive. They grab them very much.”
Second, being undernourished and underweight as a result of an eating disorder exaggerates any autistic traits. The effect of starvation on brain function impairs set-shifting – the ability to think flexibly and to multi-task instead of focusing on one thing – and the ability to read other people’s minds. “They become more socially isolated, withdraw more and more into their own world and become cut off and lonely,” she says.
The task for therapy is to bring them out of their obsession with eating, or avoiding it. But they have to make “big choices that require a lot of courage”. The autistic features are reversible in the majority of sufferers once they regain full weight but it requires “a leap so they stop listening to their eating disorder voices”.
Girls whose autistic traits predated their anorexia face a harder task, even supposing they conquer the eating disorder. “For those with high functioning Asperger’s they can work out what they have to do – to remember to smile, to ask, ‘How are you?’ They need to work at it because autistic traits make them uncharming and can cause heartache throughout life. If they remember the social rules it makes them a bit more charming,” Professor Treasure says.
Nicky Clark’s daughters do not have eating disorders but, like all those with autistic traits, they struggle with the complex rules that oil the wheels of social intercourse. The eldest, Lizzy, 15, is bright, able and verbally confident. She was progressing well at school until the age of 10, when she was ostracised by her peer group and bullied.
Nicky says: “I had always known she had to have a routine. She never really played with dollies or liked imaginative games like other girls. She asked very complicated questions, constantly seeking and clarifying her perception of the world. I had to be very careful with expressions like “he will bite your head off” because she would understand it literally and be frightened.”
“She was my first child and I assumed all children were like this. But it became more apparent when she was 10 that there were differences. She moved to secondary school but the bullying became much worse and she started self-harming – biting the backs of her hands till they were raw because of her frustration. Things really spiralled down.”
It took 18 months for her to be diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome – “we really had to fight for a diagnosis,” says Nicky – and by that time she had developed head nodding and a mild version of Tourette’s syndrome.
Eventually Nicky and her husband Phil, who come from Shrewsbury, moved Lizzy to an independent school, with small classes where she has since thrived. In 2008 she appeared in the award-winning BBC film Dustbin Baby, playing Poppy, a character with Asperger’s.
Nicky says: “She has a small group of friends; they realise her take on things is different and they back off. That is all it takes. She has the maturity to say, ‘This is the way I like to do things. I am who I am and you do things differently from me.”
Emily, aged 12, was diagnosed as a toddler – long before Lizzy – with autism and learning disabilities. Nicky says: “She wasn’t speaking and my mum, who was a health visitor, said I should take her to the GP who referred her to the child development centre. She was diagnosed the day before her third birthday. I didn’t see it coming and all I could think of was Rain Man, the movie with Dustin Hoffman. Nothing the doctors were saying to me was going in. I left the consulting room and collapsed.
“Emily was terrifically affectionate and interested in things but had no language – that was the only symptom. She went to mainstream school and gradually her language started to come through. But around the age of five her friends started to drift away.”
They moved her to a special school where things improved. “She is still affectionate but she has grown and matured. Puberty has set in – she is becoming a teenager and there is a natural withdrawal. As long as she has her Teletubbies and Thomas the Tank Engine DVDs she is happy. But there is the huge challenge of her learning disabilities, which can lead to temper tantrums and what I call serious meltdown.”
Visitors to the Clark household are often surprised when they learn the girls are on the autistic spectrum. “People say, ‘Isn’t that a boy thing?’ or want to know if she can draw Westminster Abbey. Someone once said they couldn’t have autism because it only affected boys.”
Ignorance about the condition in the female sex extends to professionals, adding to the distress it causes. Research suggests that even when girls are screened autistic traits are not picked up. In one study of 60 patients at a psychiatric hospital in England, none were diagnosed as autistic but 11 were later shown to have autistic traits. They were diagnosed with other conditions such as personality disorder and schizophrenia.
Charities say a growing number of adult women are coming to them, having recognised themselves in autistic characters on television or in print. Often they are relieved to discover why they are “different”. The explanation for their delayed diagnosis, in addition to medical ignorance, is that girls tend to be better at masking the condition. They are better with language, more advanced than boys, less disruptive and better able to compensate for their problems.
Judith Gould, psychologist and director of the Lorna Wing Centre of the National Autistic Society, says: “We are definitely seeing an increase in women and girls being diagnosed. Girls are diagnosed later than boys at age 12 upwards. It is when they hit puberty that it becomes more obvious. Often they are on the periphery of social groups. They have learnt their social skills by intellect, not naturally or instinctively. Teenage girls are very socially demanding on each other and can be marginalised, teased and bullied. Often girls do not show difficult or aggressive behaviour but are shy or passive and depressed.”
It is to combat the ignorance and neglect of the condition among girls and women that this week’s conference is being held. Mark Lever, chief executive of the National Autistic Society, says: “So many women tell us that trying to get a diagnosis feels like an insurmountable hurdle and they have to fight tremendous battles to get the help support and services they desperately need. Autism is a lifelong condition. Without the right support it can have a profound effect on individuals and families.”
 
Tom Wooton opens up his book Bipolar In Order: Looking At Depression, Mania, Hallucination, and Delusion From The Other Side
I’ve worked with people whose partners have called them crazy or even sinful in respect to their depression, anxiety and bipolar symptoms.
Wooton makes a really good point as he redraws a graph from the perspective that many of us see bipolar disorder to the way it may really be. In other words, when many of us think of bipolar disorder, we think of someone who mainly sits in depression or mania and at times has respites in feeling more level.
Wooton redraws the graph to reflect that at times there is experiences of depression or mania, but for the majority of the time there is a feeling of being more level. The issue comes in the way our minds see these events.
Because the experience of depression and mania can be traumatic to the individual and the family and friends surrounding the individual, it is focused on more, gets talked about more and so it is given greater weight. Therefore, when we look at the person who has bipolar disorder, our perspective them is imbalanced in seeing the disorder rather than the order.
As then stigmatization occurs.
What would happen if we began to focus more on the order of individuals, while holding the fact that states of mind occur that also lend themselves to disorder.
Read in Full:Â http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=35624&cn=4
 
Many parents wonder how to handle a child who has been diagnosed with ADHD, anxiety or depression – or even one who is struggling with day-to-day stress. In her new book, Mental Health, Naturally: The Family Guide to HolisticCare for a Healthy Mind and Body (American Academy of Pediatrics, March 2010), pediatrician and holistic medicine expert Kathi J. Kemper, MD, MPH, FAAP, provides practical guidance to those who seek natural methods of treatment.
Dr. Kemper is a leading international authority on complementary therapies for children. With up-to-date research, illustrative examples and a practical approach for individuals and families, Mental Health, Naturally provides a comprehensive overview of mental health disorders, outlines specific strategies for improving mental health, and offers detailed approaches for those suffering from ADHD, anxiety, stress and substance abuse.
Dr. Kemper also covers fundamental techniques used to combat mental health problems such as maintaining proper nutrition, rest and exercise, while detailing stress-management practices and methods such as acupuncture, homeopathy, massage and chiropractic and osteopathic therapies. Detailed chapters on dietary supplements, a chapter on advocacy, and a section with action plans and additional resources also are provided.
Mental Health, Naturally will be available in bookstores nationwide in March. The guide may also be ordered on the new AAP Web site for parents, HealthyChildren.org by going to http://www.healthychildren.org/mental-health-naturally. For interviews or review copies, please contact the AAP Department of Communications. Cover art is available.
About the author
Kathi J. Kemper, MD, MPH, FAAP, is recognized internationally as the leading authority on holistic, integrative and complementary therapies for children. She is the chairperson of the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Complementary, Holistic, and Integrative Medicine. She is the Caryl J. Guth chair for holistic and integrative medicine at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine and the 2008 recipient of the inaugural Leadership Award from the Integrative Pediatrics Council. Dr. Kemper lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.