Therapist Unlimited Blog

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) is a medical professional membership association representing the majority of child and adolescent psychiatrists in the United States.
Established in 1953, the AACAP is the leading national medical association dedicated to the advancement of medical contributions to the knowledge, diagnosis and treatment for the estimated 7—12 million American youth under 18 years of age who are affected by emotional, behavioral, developmental and mental disorders.
In addition to providing print resources to mental health professionals and the general public, the AACAP also works with government agencies and mental health groups to improve mental health care and influence public policy.
The Academy publishes the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry monthly.

Federal Advocacy
 

Despite treatment advances and better early identification, most youth with mental illnesses do not receive treatment. Some of the barriers to treatment include: a sever shortage of child and adolescent psychiatrists, lack of adequate coverage of services within health care systems, lack of research funding, lack of community mental health services. The AACAP has a legislative agenda to help eliminate these barriers.

Member Benefits
 

The Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry by far the most prestigious in its field, the monthly Journal is a primary source for the latest research and studies in child and adolescent psychiatry.
Members also have access to the complete Journal online archive as well as articles published online ahead of print.
 

To learn more about the organization you can visit their official website at http://www.aacap.org/.

Those children facing anorexia have higher chances of suffering from impaired bone development when they reach adolescent.
This was the result of a recent research which also uncovered that children and teenagers with even mild cases of anorexia exhibit abnormal bone structure.
Anorexia is an eating disorder characterized by emaciation, distorted body image and intense fear of gaining weight.
Miriam A. Bredella, M.D., musculoskeletal radiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and assistant professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School in Boston said Adolescence is the most critical period for growth of bone mass, and the onset of anorexia interferes with that process, impairment of bone development may permanently alter bone structure and increase the risk of fractures and osteoporosis in adult life.
Bredella revealed people with the disorder are obsessed with weight control and often perceive themselves as overweight, even when they are dangerously thin.

Recent studies have shown that anorexia could affect adolescent bone development.

She said the disorder primarily occurs among young women and affects one in 100 adolescent girls.
The medical expert added among the many health problems associated with anorexia is bone loss.
To get the data, Bredella and her team used high-resolution, flat-panel volume computed tomography (CT) and DXA to study 10 adolescent girls, age 13 to 18, with mild anorexia and 10 age-matched girls without the disorder.
The new, high-resolution CT exam allowed the researchers to identify differences in bone structure between the patients with anorexia and the healthy controls, whereas bone mineral density measurements obtained using DXA did not.
The researchers said the results showed that while there was not a significant difference in bone mineral density between the anorexic patients and the healthy control group, there were significant structural differences, indicating that changes in bone structure begin to occur in anorexic patients well before decreases in bone density.
Moreover, the researchers claimed their data suggest that reassuring values of bone mineral density obtained using DXA may not reflect the true status of bone structure in this undernourished population.
Bredella said that in patients with anorexia, bone structure should be analyzed to detect abnormal bone health.

Children and adolescents in the United States are in dire need of sufficient number of child and adolescent psychiatrists who will cater to their medical condition.
According to the latest data released by the U.S. Surgeon General, it was discovered that there are only an estimate 7418 practicing child and adolescent psychiatrists serving  73,675,6002 children and adolescents in the US.
The information released by the US Surgeon General also bared that 20 percent of children and adolescents have a mental disorder with at least a mild functional impairment in the US.
To address this problem a bill sponsored by Congressman Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) and Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) dubbed as The Child Health Care Crisis Relief Act had been introduced in the House of Representatives.
The pending bills seeks to support loan repayment, scholarships, clinical training grants, and education grants for children’s mental health professionals including: behavioural paediatricians, child and adolescent psychiatrists, child psychologists, school psychologists, school social workers, school counsellors, psychiatric nurses, and marriage and family therapists.

A crisis for child and adolescent psychiatrists now looms in the United States of America.

Child and adolescent psychiatry is the only medical specialty that comprehensively trains physicians to assess and treat children and adolescents’ mental illnesses.
Only averages of 300 child and adolescent psychiatrists complete training each year.
Overwhelming educational debt, pressure and incentives to pursue a primary care career, a long training period, and reimbursement problems discourage medical students from choosing child and adolescent psychiatry.