A.D.H.D. Seen in 11% of U.S. Children as Diagnoses Rise

Nearly one in five high school age boys in the United States and 11 percent of school-age children over all have received a medical diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, according to new data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

These rates reflect a marked rise over the last decade and could fuel growing concern among many doctors that the A.D.H.D. diagnosis and its medication are overused in American children.

The figures showed that an estimated 6.4 million children ages 4 through 17 had received an A.D.H.D. diagnosis at some point in their lives, a 16 percent increase since 2007 and a 41 percent rise in the past decade. About two-thirds of those with a current diagnosis receive prescriptions for stimulants like Ritalin or Adderall, which can drastically improve the lives of those with A.D.H.D. but can also lead to addiction, anxiety and occasionally psychosis.

Read more of Alan Schwarz and Sarah Cohen's New York Times article HERE.

Motion Sickness - The Taming of the Stomach

MOTION sickness, as many travelers know all too well, can strike on ships, trains, planes or in a car — whenever the balance center in the inner ear senses motion that the eyes do not. Those mixed signals, which are sent to the brain, can literally be sickening.

So, if you’re prone to motion sickness, don’t even think about reading on a winding road or on a bumpy flight; the words on the page are still, but your inner ear senses movement. The result can be nausea, dizziness, clammy hands and, alas, vomiting.

The most common advice for avoiding carsickness and seasickness is to look at the horizon, as that reference point makes it clear you’re moving. On a ship, it may be a good idea to stay out on deck where you can keep your eyes on the horizon. In a car, it helps to drive or sit in the front seat (as opposed to the back seat) since you can see farther ahead. On a plane, try to book a seat near the wings where it is more stable.

Read more of Catherine St. Louis' New York Times article HERE.

Wonder Dog

Karen Shirk operates a dog-training school in Xenia, Ohio, a charming antebellum village flattened twice by tornadoes. Dressed in baggy jeans and a man’s white T-shirt, swaying deeply as she walked, breathing through the metal button of a tracheotomy tube, she led me into her office at the far end of a brick building that once served as the local V.F.W. Hall. We waded into a crowd of bouncing ecstatic Papillons — toy dogs whose wide, silky ears inspired the breed’s name, the French word for “butterfly.” Though she stepped away only a moment earlier, the dozen little dogs rejoiced as if they’d feared never seeing her again: some spun in excitement, others leapt onto her desk and one tap-danced along the computer keyboard. They raised their pointed little faces and emitted high-pitched yips of hallelujah. When Shirk, who is 49, reached her desk chair, they settled on the floor at her feet, folded up their ears like kites and watched her. When she laughed, they took out their ears and waved them around.

As a young woman, Shirk pursued a master’s degree in social work and held a full-time job with cognitively impaired adults. She felt, she says, “carefree,” until the day she collapsed in respiratory distress and was rushed to an emergency room. Hospitalized for months, she received the grim diagnosis, at age 24, of myasthenia gravis, a rare neuromuscular disease. She left the hospital only to become a respirator-dependent patient in need of constant care.

“Why don’t you get a service dog?” a new nurse asked Shirk, six years into her illness. Supine in front of the TV, Shirk seemed unaware of the hour, day or month. A dog could offer mobility assistance, the nurse said, like opening a drawer and bringing clean socks. She seemed also to suspect that a dog might jump-start the life of this sad and lonely patient.

“How could I take care of a dog?” Shirk rasped. “I can’t even take care of myself.”

Read Melissa Fay Greene's New York Times article HERE. See video HERE.

ADHD medicines in short supply

Medication to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder is in such short supply that hundreds of patients complain daily to the Food and Drug Administration that they are unable to find a pharmacy with enough pills to fill their prescriptions.

The shortages are a result of a troubled partnership between drug manufacturers and the Drug Enforcement Administration, with companies trying to maximize their profits and drug-enforcement agents trying to minimize abuse by people, many of them college students, who use the medications to get high or to stay up all night.

Caught in between are millions of children and adults who rely on the pills to help them stay focused and calm.

Shortages, particularly of generics, have become so endemic that some patients say they worry almost constantly about availability.

While the Food and Drug Administration monitors the safety and supply of the drugs, which are sold both as generics and under brand names such as Ritalin and Adderall, the Drug Enforcement Administration sets manufacturing quotas that are designed to control supplies and thwart abuse.

Read more of Gardiner Harris' THE NEW YORK TIMES article in the Columbus Dispatch HERE.

Navigating Love and Autism

GREENFIELD, Mass. — The first night they slept entwined on his futon, Jack Robison, 19, who had since childhood thought of himself as “not like the other humans,” regarded Kirsten Lindsmith with undisguised tenderness.


She was the only girl to have ever asked questions about his obsessive interests — chemistry, libertarian politics, the small drone aircraft he was building in his kitchen — as though she actually cared to hear his answer. To Jack, who has a form of autism called Asperger syndrome, her mind was uncannily like his. She was also, he thought, beautiful.

So far they had only cuddled; Jack, who had dropped out of high school but was acing organic chemistry in continuing education classes, had hopes for something more. Yet when she smiled at him the next morning, her lips seeking his, he turned away.

“I don’t really like kissing,” he said.

Kirsten, 18, a college freshman, drew back. If he knew she was disappointed, he showed no sign.

On that fall day in 2009, Kirsten did not know that someone as intelligent and articulate as Jack might be unable to read the feelings of others, or gauge the impact of his words. And only later would she recognize that her own lifelong troubles — bullying by students, anger from teachers and emotional meltdowns that she felt unable to control — were clues that she, too, occupied a spot on what is known as the autism spectrum.

Read more of Amy Harmon's New York Times article HERE.

Assistive Technologies Are Becoming More Prevalent For Learning Disabled

YOU might say it all started with spell-check. In the 1980s, with the introduction of word processing programs like WordPerfect, it became apparent that computerized proofreaders could come to the rescue of struggling spellers and bad typists. Thirty years later, an ever-growing array of assistive technology is available to help students read, write term papers and take tests. From pens that can remember to text that can talk, such technologies are now being held up as important tools for students with learning disabilities like dyslexia, dysgraphia (trouble writing) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

See Lisa Guernsey's New York Times Article HERE

Narcissism No Longer a Psychiatric Disorder

Narcissistic personality disorder, characterized by an inflated sense of self-importance and the need for constant attention, has been eliminated from the upcoming manual of mental disorders, which psychiatrists use to diagnose mental illness.

Read Tara Parker-Pope's New York Times article HERE.

Abuses Found at Mexican Institutions for Disabled

MEXICO CITY — Ten years ago, a human rights group released a scathing, groundbreaking report on abusive, decrepit conditions in Mexican institutions for the mentally and physically disabled, moving the country to promise change and to take the lead in writing international agreements to protect the disabled.

Read more of Randal C. Archibald's article in The New York Times HERE

Exploring Trusts for the Disabled

With the battle over taxes and estate planning techniques about to heat up, one type of planning vehicle has avoided contentious debate: the special-needs trust. These trusts are supposed to supplement the benefits a disabled person receives from the government — paying for additional services or equipment not otherwise covered — but not to supplant them. (Read more of Paul Sullivan's New York Times' article HERE.)

IPad Opens World to a Disabled Boy

OWEN CAIN depends on a respirator and struggles to make even the slightest movements — he has had a debilitating motor-neuron disease since infancy.

Owen, 7, does not have the strength to maneuver a computer mouse, but when a nurse propped her boyfriend’s iPad within reach in June, he did something his mother had never seen before.

See Emily B. Hagar's New York Times article HERE

Autism Therapy at 6 Months

Scientists across North America are looking for signs of autism as early as 6 months in the hope of stopping the development of the disorder. See the New York Times article HERE.

Education for the Severely Disabled makes the front page of the New York Times

The article, Schools Struggle to Educate the Severely Handicap, appeared in on page A1 in the New York Times on June 20, 2010.

Read the article: HERE