Therapist Unlimited Blog

Parents better keep their children away from television sets at an early age.
This developed after a recent study has shown that three-year-old children who are exposed to more TV appear to be at an increased risk for exhibiting aggressive behavior.
Based on the study, early childhood aggression can be problematic for parents, teachers and childhood peers and sometimes is predictive of more serious behavior problems to come, such as juvenile delinquency, adulthood violence and criminal behavior.
The researchers on their study has discovered various predictive factors for childhood aggression that include parents’ discipline style, neighborhood safety and media exposure.
The researchers revealed after music, television is the medium children aged 0 to 3 years are exposed to the most.
The researchers added although the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no screen media for children younger than age 2, studies have found consistent use of television in that age group.
To get the result, Jennifer A. Manganello, Ph.D., M.P.H., of University at Albany, State University of New York, Rensselaer, and Catherine A. Taylor, Ph.D., M.S.W., M.P.H., of Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, New Orleans, analyzed data from 3,128 mothers of children born from 1998 to 2000 in 20 large U.S. cities to examine associations of child television exposure and household television use with aggressive behavior in children.

 

 

 

Watching television should be avoided by children to keep them away from aggressive behavior.

 

 

Parents were interviewed at the time of the child’s birth and at one and three years.
At three years, they were asked to report time the child spent watching TV directly as well as household TV use on a typical day. Aggression also was assessed at 3 years of age using a 15-item aggressive subscale for 2- and 3-year-old children. Demographic information and other risk factors for aggression were also noted.
About two-thirds (65 percent) of mothers reported that their 3-year-old child watched more than two hours of television per day. On average, children were exposed to an additional 5.2 hours of household TV use per day.
Direct child TV exposure and household TV use were both significantly associated with childhood aggression, after accounting for other factors such as parent, family, neighborhood and demographic characteristics. "One explanation that could link both child and household TV measures with aggression involves the parenting environment," the authors write. Households with higher rates of TV use may have fewer restrictions on children’s viewing habits such as exposure to unregulated television content. Increased household television use may also affect daily routines such as eating and communication patterns and may decrease time spent on other activities.
"Current American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations mainly suggest limitations for direct child exposure to TV and other media; however, our findings suggest that additional household TV use may also be an important predictor of negative childhood outcomes, such as
early childhood aggression," the authors conclude. "Future research in this area should consider inclusion of both of these TV variables along with additional parent-child interaction assessments, observational assessments when possible, quality and/or content of TV programs and longitudinal analyses."

 

Those persons who wish to avoid depression when they reach middle age better start eating healthy diet now.
A recent study from the United Kingdom has shown that eating healthy foods such as  high proportion of fruits, vegetables and fish, protects middle aged people against depression compared to a processed food diet containing a high proportion of high fat dairy
food, processed meat, fried food, refined grains and sugar-laden desserts.
The research was made possible through the effort of researchers from the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London (UCL), UK and the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM), and University of Montpellier, France.
Based on their study, the researchers revealed that much research on diet and depression tends to focus on individual nutrients so they thought they would look at links between overall dietary patterns and depression.
To get the data, the researchers looked at 3,486 participants of average age 57 years (nearly three quarters were men) who were part of the Whitehall II study.
The Whitehall II study was created by co-author and UCL Professor Sir Michael Marmot to investigate links between disease and social class, psychosocial factors and life style. It began by looking at the health of working people, and is now also looking to answer questions about how previous and current circumstances affect health and quality of life in an ageing group of participants.
The data allowed the researchers to identify two dietary patters: a whole food diet and a processed food diet. The whole food diet comprised mainly fresh fruits and vegetables and fish, while the processed diet comprised mainly sweetened desserts, fried foods, high fat
dairy foods, processed meat and refined grains.
To assess depression, the researchers used self-reported data that had been gathered five years after the dietary data using the CES-D scale. CES-D, short for Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale, is a commonly used self-report questionnaire for assessing depression.
It asks a series of multiple choice questions about how the participant has been feeling over the past week, covering topics such as concentration, loss of appetite, worry, how well they have been able to shake off depressive moods, quality of sleep, feelings of
loneliness, self-worth, energy levels, and so on.

 

 

 

To avoid depression in middle age it is time to engage in a healthy diet now.

 

 

 

When they analysed the results and ruled out potential confounders such as age, gender, education, smoking, exercise, and chronic diseases, the researchers found that:
* Participants in the top 33 per cent (top tertile) of the whole food diet pattern, ie whose diet most closely matched the whole food diet, had a 26 per cent lower risk of receiving a CES-D depression assessment five years later (odds ratio 0.74, with 95 per cent probability of this being in the range 0.56 to 0.99) compared to the bottom 33 per cent (bottom tertile), ie whose diet least closely matched the whole food diet.
* In contrast, participants whose diet was high in processed foods had a 58 per cent higher risk of receiving a CES-D depression rating five years later.
The researchers concluded that:
"In middle-aged participants, a processed food dietary pattern is a risk factor for CES-D depression 5 years later, whereas a whole food pattern is protective."
According to BBC News, co-author Dr Archana Singh-Manoux, who works at UCL and INSERM, suggested there was a possibility that the finding could be explained by a lifestyle factor they had not accounted for.
In other words the study does not prove that a processed food diet causes depression: it could be that people destined to become depressed become inclined to eat more processed foods, that there is a yet undiscovered factor behind both.
However, when results as strong as these emerge, and a consistent pattern linking diet and depression is found by several studies, it would tend to suggest that a healthy diet does protect against mental ill health.
The Chief Executive of the UK-based Mental Health Foundation, Dr Andrew McCulloch told the BBC that:
"This study adds to an existing body of solid research that shows the strong links between what we eat and our mental health."
He said major studies like this were crucial in helping us understand more about how diet contributes to mental illness. He said people in the UK were increasingly adopting unhealthy diets, and eating less nutritious and fresh food and more saturated fats and sugars.

 

 

 

 

Those persons seeking to use aspirin as prevention against cardiovascular disease better abandon the plan now.
A recent medical research has uncovered that the use of low-dose aspirin to ward off heart attacks and strokes in those yet to develop obvious cardiovascular disease can cause serious medical complications.
In the medical world, low-dose aspirin is widely used to prevent further episodes of cardiovascular disease in people who have already had problems such as a heart attack or stroke.
This method known as secondary prevention is well established and of confirmed benefit.
But it is the use of aspirin in primary prevention for those without symptoms, who have not yet had, for example, a heart attack or stroke, but who may be at risk of doing so, following an analysis of the available evidence.
In 2000, cardiovascular disease accounted for two million deaths across the European Union alone, and "worldwide, many people take aspirin every day in the belief that doing so helps prevent cardiovascular disease," says the researchers.

 

 

 

Aspirin could be fatal if not used properly.

 

 

 

The researchers points to various guidelines issued between 2005 and 2008 that recommend aspirin for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease in various groups of patients. Examples include people aged 50 and older with type 2 diabetes and those with high blood pressure.
But the team explained that the current evidence does not back up the routine use of low-dose aspirin in such groups, because of the potential risk of serious gastrointestinal bleeds that accompany its use and the negligible impact it has on curbing death rates.
Doctors should review all patients currently taking low-dose aspirin for primary prevention, either as prescribed or over-the-counter treatment, says the research team.
"And the decision about whether to continue or stop treatment should be made only after fully informing patients of the available evidence", they added.
"Furthermore,  the researchers concluded that current evidence for primary prevention suggests the benefits and harms of aspirin in this setting may be more finely balanced than previously thought, even in individuals estimated to be at high risk of experiencing cardiovascular events, including those with diabetes or elevated blood pressure.
The researchers believe, that low dose aspirin prophylaxis should not be routinely used for primary prevention.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Drinking too much liquor might be bad for the health but for some instances it is not that harmful.
A recent medical study has shown that drunk patients have better chances of surviving trauma injuries than their sober counterparts.
According to the report, trauma patients who were intoxicated before their injuries were more likely to survive than trauma patients who suffered similar injuries but were sober at
the time.
To get the result, researchers at the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center (LA BioMed) surveyed 7,985 trauma patients of similar age and with similar injuries to determine if the consumption of alcohol prior to injury affected
outcome.
Based on their study they discovered that 7 percent of the sober patients died compared to just 1 percent of the patients who had been drinking.

 

 

 

Getting drunk is not that all bad after-all.

 

 

 

"This study is not encouraging the use of alcohol," said Christian de Virgilio, MD, LA BioMed’s principal investigator for the study. "It is seeking to
further explore earlier studies that had found alcohol may improve the body’s response to severe injuries. If alcohol is proven to improve the body’s
response to traumatic injury, it could lead to treatments that help patients survive and recover more quickly."
Alcohol consumption is already known to be one of the leading causes of accident and injury, with a previous study finding it contributes to about
one-third of all trauma-related deaths. Previous studies found trauma patients who had abused alcohol for a long period of time had lower survival rates.
But recent studies also found alcohol consumption may protect against death by changing the chemical response to injury.
"This study adds further support to the possibility that alcohol could be altering the body’s response to injury in a way that helps ensure survival," said
Dr. de Virgilio. "Given these findings, more research is needed to determine if there is some role for alcohol in the management of trauma patients.

 

Proper design  is everything to make sure children are safe from harm.
Keeping children safe from injuries is a must since injury is the leading cause of death for children over the age of 1 in industrialized countries and improving the safety of the man made (built) environment will benefit children’s health.
Based on the recent study,injury accounts for about 40% of childhood deaths in industrialized countries and is even higher in developing countries.
It often involves failure to negotiate a manmade environment. Death rates from injury in affluent countries is 15.3 per 100,000 boys and 10 per 100,000 for girls among children 14 and younger. In developing countries, the rates are 50.5 per 100,000 boys and 43.5 per 100,000 girls.
In 2002, 371,000 boys and 289,000 girls worldwide died of injury, with more than 180,000 mostly pedestrians killed by traffic.
In addition to causing injury and death, unsafe environments are barriers to physical activity that is important to life long health. Changes such as speed control, traffic light phasing, fencing spaces and enhancing pedestrian visibility can reduce injuries by 50 to 75% in specific locations and 25% in wider areas. By making traffic safer for children, it increases the likelihood they will walk to school and can derive health benefits from physical activity.
In fact, 50% of Canadian children never walk to school compared with only 17% who do most of the time.
"By giving priority to automotive over pedestrian transportation we have allowed road traffic to become the leading cause of death among our children,"
 writes Dr. Andrew Howard of the University of Toronto and The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids). "North American children are increasingly sedentary," and urban sprawl is linked to higher rates of traffic injury and obesity.

 

 

 

Keep your children safe from harm by making their environment free from danger through proper design.

 

 

Other ways to modify the built environment include appropriate playground equipment that minimizes injuries while encouraging activity. Falls from climbing
equipment are 5 times more likely to result in severe fractures than falls from a standing height. Evidence shows that playgrounds that did not comply with standards from the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) had twice the rate of injury of compliant playgrounds, although these standards are voluntary without regulatory authority for most Canadian playgrounds.
Fencing around pools to limit deaths from drowning and modification of homes and apartments to prevent falls from windows are other examples of changes to physical surroundings that can save children’s lives.
"Our built environment influences our children’s levels of activity, their physical health and their risk for injury," writes Dr. Howard. "Intelligent planning, particularly with consideration for urban design and traffic engineering to emphasize safe walking and cycling, has enormous potential to improve the health and safety of children now and across the lifespan."

 

 

Parents who have children suffering from celiac disease could now smile a little bit despite the medical condition of their beloved angels.
Based on medical facts, a Celiac disease (CD) is an inherited intestinal disorder characterized by life-long intolerance to the ingestion of gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye, and barley. Although CD can be diagnosed at any age, it commonly occurs during early childhood (between 9 and 24 months). Reduced bone mineral density is often found in individuals with CD.
Metabolic bone disease remains a significant and common complication of CD. Reduced bone mineral density can lead to the inability to develop optimal bone mass in children and the loss of bone in adults, both of which increase the risk of osteoporosis.   There also exists an additional risk of fracture in people with CD.

 

 

 

Those children suffering from celiac disease should engage in a gluten-free diet to be cured of their medical problem.

 

 

A recent medical study has shown that a gluten-free diet (GFD) promotes a rapid increase in bone mineral density that leads to complete recovery of bone
mineralization in children. A GFD improves, although rarely normalizes, bone mineral density in adults. Children may attain normal peak bone mass if the
diagnosis is made and treatment is given before puberty, thereby preventing osteoporosis in later life.
Also, nutritional supplements consisting of calcium and vitamin D seem to increase the bone mineral density of children and adolescents with CD.
"Our findings reinforce the importance of a strict gluten-free diet, which remains the only scientific proven treatment for celiac disease to date," the
researchers conclude. "Early diagnosis and therapy are critical in preventing celiac disease complications, like reduced bone mineral density", they added.

 

A recent study has shown that a healthy body and lifestyles keep professional athletes notably football players and even ordinary men free from heart disease after their retirement from the game or work.
Based on the research, compared to other men in a similar age range, retired National Football League players had a significantly lower prevalence of diabetes, hypertension, sedentary lifestyles and metabolic syndrome.
"Despite their large body size, retired NFL players do not have a greater prevalence of heart disease risk factors when compared to the general population,"
said Dr. Alice Chang, assistant professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern and the study’s lead author. "In fact, other factors such as age and high
cholesterol levels were better predictors for heart disease than the body size of the former athletes in our study."
When body mass index (BMI) standards are applied, more than half of all professional football players are considered overweight or obese, which is
considered an indicator for heart disease risk. Dr. Chang said although a majority of these players are not as fit and active after retirement, they still
had fewer risk factors for heart disease than men of the same age and body size from the Dallas Heart Study, a groundbreaking investigation of
cardiovascular disease that involves thousands of Dallas County residents.
 

 

 

Retirees who wish to be free from heart disease should keep their body healthy through exercise and a healthy lifestyle.

 

Staying physically fit earlier in life might have offset the risks associated with a large body size, said the study’s senior author, Dr. Benjamin Levine,
a professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern, and director of the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine a joint program of UT
Southwestern and Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas.
The study examined 150 former pro athletes and 150 normal counterparts from the Dallas Heart Study with an average age of 55. The median BMI for both
groups was higher than 31, which is considered to be in the obese range.
Retired NFL players didn’t get a totally clean bill of health, however. As a group they were found to have developed similar amounts of coronary
atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) as the group of non athletes. Although they were less likely to have diabetes, they had higher rates of
pre-diabetes, high fasting blood-sugar numbers that increase their risk for developing diabetes in the future.
The study authors’ scientific investigation with a high-profile group could have far-reaching implications. More than 60 percent of offensive and defensive
linemen at the high-school level, they note, also can be characterized through BMI as overweight or obese.
"The good news is that as long as you remain active and fit, even with a larger body, you can lower your risk for heart disease," Dr. Chang said. "The bad
news is that being a professional athlete doesn’t eliminate your risk for developing heart disease later in life. Even professional athletes may be at risk
for developing heart disease as they age."
Professional athletes should continue exercise regimens after their professional careers are over, Dr. Chang said. For the public at large, the study
reaffirms that exercise is an important way to decrease the risk for heart disease, Dr. Chang said.
Other UT Southwestern researchers who contributed to the study include Dr. Song Zhang, assistant professor of clinical sciences; and Amit Patel,
fourth-year medical student. Researchers from the Cooper Clinic in Dallas, the University of Washington, Emory University School of Medicine, the Baptist Cardiac and Vascular Institute, and the Living Heart Foundation also contributed to the study.

 

According to a recent study, individuals living in neighborhoods conducive to physical activity and providing access to healthy foods may have a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes in a five-year period.
"The worldwide epidemic of type 2 diabetes mellitus is largely driven by the combined rise in obesity, intake of energy-dense or nutrient-poor foods and physical inactivity," the authors write as background information in the article. Interventions to reduce risk on the individual level including surgery, medication and behavior change - have had mixed results. Large-scale behavior change may be necessary to reverse the diabetes epidemic, but such a change is difficult to achieve and may be unsustainable if the surrounding environment is not supportive.
Amy H. Auchincloss, Ph.D., M.P.H., of Drexel University School of Public Health, Philadelphia, and colleagues studied 2,285 adults age 45 to 84 who were initially examined between 2000 and 2002. Study participants were from three of the sites in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) for which neighborhood level data were obtained: Baltimore; Forsyth County, N.C.; and New York City/Bronx. Blood glucose levels were obtained from study participants at baseline and at three follow-up examinations, during which other individual characteristics also were assessed (including diet, body mass index [BMI] and physical activity levels).

 

 

 

Residents of a peaceful nighborhood has lesser chances of getting inflicted with diabetes.
 

 

Measures of neighborhood resources were obtained from a separate assessment, the Community Survey, in which other residents of the same neighborhoods (defined as the area within a 20-minute walk or a mile from their homes) rated the suitability of their environment for physical activity and access to healthy foods. For instance, they were asked if it was pleasant or easy to walk in their neighborhood, and whether a large, high-quality selection of fruits, vegetables and other low-fat foods was available. Scores for physical activity and healthy foods were calculated for each neighborhood on scales of one to five (with five representing the healthiest areas).
Over a median (midpoint) of five years of follow-up, 233 of the 2,285 participants (10.2 percent) developed diabetes. Average neighborhood scores were 3.68 for physical activity and 3.36 for healthy foods.
"Better neighborhood resources, determined by a combined score for physical activity and healthy foods, were associated with a 38 percent lower incidence of type 2 diabetes," the authors revealed. This was similar to the reduction in risk observed among individuals whose BMI was five points lower. "The association remained statistically significant after further adjustment for individual dietary factors, physical activity level and body mass index."
The increasing prevalence of type 2 diabetes in the past 30 years makes it urgent to identify environmental features that may mitigate risk, the authors conclude. "Current efforts to foster health-promoting environments include designing and modifying physical environments, such as zoning residential neighborhoods to require safe sidewalks, creating parks and attractive public green spaces and improving public transportation so that residents rely less on their cars; supporting fresh-food farmers’ markets in low-income, urban neighborhoods; and assisting stores in those neighborhoods in improving their selection of healthy foods," they write.
"There is unlikely to be a panacea for the obesity epidemic and rising epidemic of type 2 diabetes. However, altering our environments so that healthier behaviors and lifestyles can be easily chosen may be one of the key steps in arresting and reversing these epidemics."

 

Are you a frequent user of amphetamine in your adolescence?
Well it is time for you to stop such addiction since too much intake of amphetamine could result in memory loss upon reaching adulthood.
The findings was taken on a study conducted by medical experts on a group of rats exposed to high doses of amphetamine.
Based on the study, the experts discovered that The declines in short-term or "working" memory are most pronounced when the rats are exposed during adolescence, rather than as adults.
"Animals that were given the amphetamine during the adolescent time period were worse at tasks requiring working memory than adult animals that were given the same amount of amphetamine as adults," said psychology professor Joshua Gulley, who led the study with graduate student Jessica Stanis. "This tells us that their working memory capacity has been significantly altered by that pre-exposure to amphetamine."
Gulley and his colleagues presented their findings at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Chicago.
The researchers tested two types of amphetamine exposure: intermittent (a steady dose every other day) and "binge-escalation," in which increasing amounts of the drug were given over a period of four days, followed by a simulated binge a high dose every two hours for eight hours on the fifth day.
 

 

 

Too much intake of amphetamine should be avoided since it could lead to memory loss upon reaching adulthood.
 

 

 

The findings reveal some of the potential long-term consequences of amphetamine abuse by adolescents and also may be relevant to those taking amphetamines for therapeutic purposes, such as for the treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Gulley cautions that the doses given to the rats are on the high end of what an older, larger adolescent might receive as a therapeutic dose, and that further study is needed to tease out the implications for human health.
The concerns are most robust for adolescents who abuse amphetamines, Gulley said, as they may use much higher doses than those who are prescribed drugs that contain amphetamines.
"Adolescence is a time when the brain is continuing to develop into its mature form, so drug exposure during this critical period could have long-lasting, negative consequences," he said. "Our findings reveal that adolescents are particularly sensitive to the adverse effects of amphetamine on cognitive function and that these effects can persist well after drug use is discontinued."

 

 

It is time to cheer up for parents of preterm infants.
A recent medical study has shown that preterm infants who receive leg movement training display feet-reaching behaviors similar to that of full-term infants, according to a randomized controlled trial.
This finding supports feet-reaching play as an early intervention strategy to encourage interaction with physical objects in preterm infants who have movement problems within the first months of postnatal life.
Previous studies have shown that full-term infants make contact with toys using their feet before reaching with their hands. Studies also have shown that movement training advances feet reaching in full-term infants. Certain populations of preterm infants are known to be delayed in hand reaching; however, no studies have looked at feet-reaching in preterm infants.
"The presence of feet reaching and a positive training effect in this population would suggest a novel and easily implemented intervention strategy to encourage early object interaction in infants with special needs," said Jill C. Heathcock, PT, PhD, assistant professor in the Division of Physical Therapy at Ohio State University, and lead author of the study.
In this study, 27 preterm infants who were born at less than 33 weeks of gestational age and weighed less than 5 lbs 8 oz received either movement training or social training by their caregivers 5 days a week for 8 weeks. Movement training consisted of three feet games: general leg movement, moving the leg across the midline of the body, and distinct leg movements, such as holding an infant’s hip at 90 degrees and encouraging knee motion to contact the toy with the foot. Caregivers of infants in the social training group positioned their infant supine on the floor and sat near the infant’s feet. The caregiver interacted with their infant visually and verbally, but did not touch or present objects to their infant.

During the 8-week training period, all infants were tested and videotaped for a total of five sessions. Infants were seated in a custom-made chair with a strap placed around the chest, allowing for free movement of the arms and legs. A toy was presented to the infant at his or her midline at hip height for 30 seconds. After each trial, the toy was removed from the infant’s view and then repositioned in the midline for the next trial.
Both groups of infants showed an equal number of foot-toy contacts over each session. However, infants in the movement training group out-performed infants in the social training group over time and during the last session.
"Our results suggest that preterm infants display a new and potentially important ability to contact objects with their feet before their hands," said Heathcock. "This finding, coupled with a positive effect of training, provides clinicians with a new intervention strategy for encouraging object interaction within the first months of life in infants at risk for long-term motor impairments."