PAR is proud to announce that the following 14 PAR authors will be presenting at APA this year. We encourage you attend their sessions and to visit our booth to meet our staff, pick up a complimentary doorhanger, and receive 15% off plus free shipping and handling on all purchases made during APA 2012.


Kevin D. Arnold
2212


Phillip J. Brantley
3293


Lisa Firestone
1174, 3051


Gerard Gioia
2210


Christopher Hopwood
4060


Randy Kamphaus
1150, 2127, 2163, 4104


Alan Kaufman
3211


Mark McMinn
1096, 1307, 2073, 2316, 3099, 3248


Jonathan Mueller
4132


Randal Salekin 
1013, 1141, 4130, 4135


Peter Sheras
 2271, 3047, 4131


Glenn Smith
3073


Robert Stern
2210


Irv Weiner
1066

Although more common in teens and young women, eating disorders are affecting a growing number of older women, according to a new study published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders. The research, led by Cynthia Bulik, a professor of psychiatry and director of the Eating Disorders Program at the University of North Carolina, surveyed 1,849 women aged 50 years and older from across the U.S. The survey included questions about eating disorder symptoms, dieting and body checking behaviors, and weight and shape concerns. Among the sometimes surprising results, 13 percent of those surveyed reported eating disorder symptoms such as excessive dieting, binge eating, and purging; 62 percent said that their weight or shape has a negative impact on their lives.

“The disorders have serious physical as well as emotional consequences,” said Bulik in a June 21 interview with USA Today. “Part of my goal is to make this an issue all doctors need to be aware of regardless of a woman’s age. Many think eating disorders end at age 25. They exist at every age, we're finding.”

Although eating disorders have a serious negative impact on health at any age, the problems are compounded in older women, whose immune systems can be weaker and whose bone density is often lower. Bulik often sees severe osteoporosis, gastroesophageal reflux disease, and cardiovascular health issues linked to eating disorders in older patients (American Medical Association online newsletter, July 9).

One of the country’s first residential treatment centers for eating disorders, the Renfrew Center reports a 42 percent increase over the last 10 years in the number of women aged 35 years and older seeking treatment at its clinics. Some of the center’s older patients have struggled with eating disorders or other weight issues for many years, while others developed an eating disorder for the first time later in life.

“We ask the question, what are the triggers to mid- and late-life eating disorders?” Bulik said in the USA Today interview. “They’re talking about divorce, loss, children leaving home, children coming home, being in the sandwich generation when you’re taking care of children and your parents…. Food can be seen as a way to regulate mood during these times.”

Some attribute part of the increase in eating disorders among older women to more frequent diagnoses based on doctors’ greater awareness of the issue. But whatever the cause, it’s clear that eating disorders are not limited to the young—and older women are seeking help more often as they struggle with weight and shape concerns.

What do you think? Have you noticed an increase in the number of older clients with symptoms of eating disorders? PAR wants to hear from you, so leave a comment and join the conversation!

 

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Concussions are in the headlines once again as awareness grows about a possible link between concussions and the permanent brain damage associated with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. The issue has far-reaching implications, including for one of the country’s most venerated institutions: the National Football League.

A major complaint filed last month against the NFL involving more than 2,400 former professional football players alleges that the NFL was not only aware of links between head injuries (such as concussions) and permanent brain injuries, but that they attempted to hide the information from players and the public. According to a June 30 AP report, “At issue is whether the NFL knew if there were links between football-related head trauma and permanent brain injuries and failed to take appropriate action.” Attorneys for retired players accuse the NFL of “negligence and intentional misconduct in its response to the headaches, dizziness, and dementia that their clients have reported.”

The league has denied the charges, stating, “The NFL has long made player safety a priority and continues to do so. Any allegation that the NFL sought to mislead players has no merit. It stands in contrast to the league’s many actions to better protect players and advance the science and medical understanding of the management and treatment of concussions” (Huffington Post, June 7).

According to a 2009 study commissioned by the NFL and conducted by the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research, former professional football players report being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, dementia, and other mental impairments at many times the national average. Although the study was based on interviews and self-reporting rather than on independent diagnoses, the results suggest an alarming rate of memory-related problems.

Amid the swirl of headlines, allegations, and denials, one thing is clear: concussion is a brain injury that must be taken seriously by those who work with athletes at every level. With this goal in mind, PAR has been working closely with researchers at the Matthew Gfeller Sport-related Traumatic Brain Injury Research Center at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, to develop tools that can help coaches, athletic trainers, and parents recognize the signs and symptoms of a concussion and respond appropriately. The Concussion Recognition & Response™ app (for parents and coaches) and the Concussion Assessment & Response™ app (for athletic trainers, team physicians, and other medical professionals) are the result of this collaboration.

Are attitudes toward concussion changing in your community? Is the recent media coverage helping to raise awareness about brain injuries? PAR wants to hear from you, so leave a comment and join the conversation!

“The reason creativity and craziness go together is that if you’re just plain crazy without being able to sing or dance or write good poems, no one is going to want to have babies with you. Your genes will fall by the wayside. Who but a brazen crazy person would go one-on-one with blank paper or canvas armed with nothing but ideas?”

Author Mark Vonnegut poses this question in the first chapter of his book, Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So. In this intimate and sometimes comic memoir, Vonnegut goes one-on-one with his past and present struggles with bipolar disorder, his family history, and his qualms with the medical field. His medical background and first-hand experiences provide readers with an eye-opening portrayal of life with mental illness.

In order to understand his own disorder, Vonnegut looks at his family’s history as far back as his paternal great-grandfather. He ventures into his childhood, endearingly poking fun at his not-yet-famous father’s eccentricities and struggles as “the world’s worst car salesman who couldn’t get a job teaching English at Cape Cod Community College.” He also provides honest depictions of his mother’s bouts of depression and paranoia.

“My mother, who was radiant, young, and beautiful even as she lay dying, heard voices and saw visions,” he says, “but she always managed to make friends with them and was much too charming to hospitalize even at her craziest.”

In his twenties, Vonnegut was a self-proclaimed hippie, experimenting with illegal drugs and eventually suffering three psychotic episodes leading to hospitalization. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia, later with bipolar disorder. He found stability in adulthood, graduating from Harvard Medical School, and was eventually named Boston Magazine’s “number one pediatrician.” He was shocked when the voices came back years later, causing his fourth break and ironically leaving him strapped to a bed at the hospital where he works.

Vonnegut’s conversational and often self-deprecating tone has a universal appeal. He shows how mental illness affects the successful and brilliant as well as the poor and disenfranchised. He contends that not any one person is completely sane and that defining insanity is a slippery slope.

“None of us are entirely well, and none of us are irrevocably sick,” he says. “At my best I have islands of being sick entirely. At my worst I had islands of being well…. You either have or don’t have a reluctance to give up on yourself. It helps a lot if others don't give up on you.”

Vonnegut watched his father use writing as tool to deal with posttraumatic stress disorder following his experiences in World War II.  He believes that art and creativity are excellent outlets for those suffering from bipolar disorder and other mental illnesses. When asked about this in an interview with Sliver of Stone magazine last year, he concluded by saying, “Art is a lifeline and a form of insanity.”

Editor’s note: This week, PAR is pleased to welcome guest blogger Grace Gardner. A recent graduate of the University of South Florida with a B.A. in Mass Communication, Grace is working as an editorial assistant this summer in the production department at PAR.

 
In the search for more effective treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, a new clinical trial will test whether a prevention drug has any effect on patients who are genetically predisposed to develop the disease, but who don’t yet exhibit symptoms. In the study, scientists are focusing on members of a large, extended family in Medellín, Colombia, some of whom have a specific genetic mutation that is linked to early-onset dementia. The trial will be “the first to focus on people who are cognitively normal but at very high risk for Alzheimer’s disease,” said Dr. Francis S. Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), in a May 15 interview with the New York Times.

Members of the Colombian family who have the genetic mutation begin showing cognitive impairment around age 45 and develop full dementia by age 51. Three hundred family members, some as young as age 30, will participate in the initial trial.

The five-year study is a collaboration between the NIH, the nonprofit Banner Alzheimer’s Institute, Genentech (maker of the drug crenezumab, which will be used in the trial), and the University of Antioquia in Medellín. The trial will help to test the amyloid theory of Alzheimer’s, which holds that the disease is caused by a steady buildup of the beta amyloid protein. Some results of the trial—specifically those that address whether the drug can delay memory decline—may be available in as little as two years, according to study leader Ken Kosik, codirector of the Neuroscience Research Institute at University of California, Santa Barbara.

Although only a small percentage of people with Alzheimer’s have the genetic early-onset form, researchers expect the trial to yield information that will help millions people who are affected more common forms of the disease. “It offers a tremendous opportunity for us to answer a large number of questions, while at the same time offering these people some significant clinical help that otherwise they never would have had,” said Dr. Steven T. DeKosky, an Alzheimer’s researcher from the University of Virginia School of Medicine, in the New York Times article.

To learn more about this and other ongoing studies of Alzheimer’s disease, visit the NIH’s National Institute on Aging Web site.
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) now affects one in 29 Americans, reports Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in a June 6 statement. An anxiety disorder, PTSD affects not only combat veterans but also crime and abuse victims, disaster survivors, first responders, and others who have experienced trauma in their lives.

Symptoms of PTSD can include sleep problems, irritability, anger, recurrent dreams about the trauma, intense reactions to reminders of the trauma, disturbances in relationships, and isolation. The good news is that PTSD is treatable, and new research is helping to identify the kinds of treatment that are most effective.

“The Department of Health and Human Services, along with the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense, are supporting new research to reveal the underlying causes of PTSD and related conditions, develop better tools to identify those at highest risk of developing the disorder, and develop new and better treatments and preventive interventions,” says Sebelius.

The National Institute of Mental Health is also funding research—including both evaluation and intervention studies—on a wide range of PTSD topics. Current NIMH studies are focused on:

  • Teens coping with parental military deployment

  • The effectiveness of a Web-based intervention for guardians of children whose one parent has murdered the other

  • The effects of stress in pregnancy

  • Cognitive behavioral treatment for PTSD in people with additional serious mental illnesses

  • Comparing behavioral therapies for treating adolescents with PTSD related to sexual abuse

  • The development of magnetic resonance imaging techniques for studying mood and anxiety disorders

  • Group intervention for interpersonal trauma

  • Prazosin for treating noncombat-trauma PTSD

  • Psychobiological mechanisms of resilience to trauma


To learn more about these studies, or for information and resources to share with your clients, visit the PTSD Web site at the NIMH.

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