By: Rebecca,
on 1/14/2008
I thought it would be nice to highlight the best of our “advice” giving posts from the past year. Below is a sampling of posts that may help you reach your resolutions. Good luck!
Having a case of the Mondays? These tips from authors Gillian Butler, Ph. D., and Tony Hope, M.D., should help you get down to work. (more…)
By: Rebecca,
on 11/26/2007
This morning we presented a post from R. Barker Bausell, author of Snake Oil Science: The Truth About Complementary and Alternative Medicine , in which he argues that the placebo effect has as much healing power as alternative medicine. Below, in an excerpt from Bausell’s book, we learn about the history of the use of placebos in scientific research.
…The placebo effect itself escaped serious scientific scrutiny until 1955, having largely been considered prior to that time to be more a part of medical lore (or physician mystique) than a documented clinical entity. (more…)
By: Stephanie,
on 11/26/2007
The debate regarding the healing potential of alternative and complementary medicine can be a heated one. In his book, Snake Oil Science: The Truth About Complementary and Alternative Medicine Barker Bausell, professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, dissects alternative medicine practices, and finds that much of their healing powers lie in the placebo effect. In the post below, he takes a tongue-in-cheek look at the battle between alternative medicine and the placebo effect.
One of the many daunting tasks I faced in writing Snake Oil Science: the Truth about Complementary and Alternative Medicine was to compare the biological plausibility of the theories supporting the analgesic effects of alternative medical therapies with that of their chief rival, the placebo effect. (more…)
By: Kate Hall,
on 10/8/2007
I have to admit I wasn’t expecting much when I picked this one up (then why read it you ask; because I always read Orson Scott Card’s new books). I figured Card hadn’t even really written it, but merely come up with a vague storyline, passed it off to some rookie, and then put his name on it to sell more books. I know I sound jaded, but Robert Ludlum anyone? I mean the man is dead! How the heck is he still writing books??!?!?!? Ok, back to this book. It took me a little while to get into it, but it was a decent book. It reminded me of a Michael Crichton type book. There is a crazy scientist creating mutant DNA not to hurt anyone, but to reverse genetic mutations. Unfortunately, the mutant DNA is actualyl a virus that is so virulent it will kill anyone it comes in contact with within 5 minutes (except the person it was made for of course) Enter government agencies, a kidnapped doctor, and a crazy plan to rid the world of disease and you have an action packed thriller. The big selling point is that it is not typical and the lines between good and evil are a little more blurred than in most books of this nature, which gives it a new twist. I feel like there could have been a better ending because it kind of left my a creeped out, but I think they wanted to do that. SO if you are in the mood for a medicalish thriller I would kinda recommend picking this one up.
By: Rebecca,
on 10/8/2007
The Complete Writing Guide to NIH Behavioral Science Grants provides simple and clear explanations into the reasons that some grants get funded, and a step-by-step guide to writing those grants. This volume is edited by Lawrence M. Scheier, President of LARS Research Institute, Inc., and an Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry in the School of Medicine at Washington Univeristy, and William L. Dewey, a Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology in the School of Medicine and former Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. In the excerpt below some grant writing essentials are explained.
There are a few tried and true methods that will help you learn scholarship along the way. People working at think tanks or nonprofit groups can hire outside consultants with extensive grant-writing expertise, using this as an avenue to model writing skills. Individuals residing at academic centers can seek consultation from faculty with well-funded laboratories regardless of their substantive focus (good writing is good writing whether in chemistry or in anthropology). (more…)
By: Rebecca,
on 9/24/2007
Earlier today we posted an excerpt from Fibromyalgia: An Essential Guide for Patients and Their Families by Daniel J. Wallace, M.D. and Janice Brock Wallace. In this second excerpt, we look at the correspondence between depression and fibromyalgia. Are sufferers more likely to be depressed? Are depressed people more like to have fibromyalgia?
Is fibromyalgia a manifestation of depression or the reverse? Well-designed studies have addressed this issue, but many used different methods, populations, ethnic groupings, referral sources, and geographical distributions. (more…)
By: Rebecca,
on 7/30/2007
Everyone has anxiety, it is a normal response to stressful situations, and in moderation it helps us perform better. But when anxiety begins to rule your life, to keep you from the people you love and the things you enjoy doing, you have to seek help. The Treatments That Work series explains the most effective interventions for a particular problem in user-friendly language. In Mastery of Your Anxiety and Panic users learn concrete strategies and techniques to deal with their fear. Below is an excerpt that explains a breathing exercise that will help you face fear calmly. Remember though that this an excerpt from a complete program that is only proven to work when practiced from beginning to end with a physician’s help.
Step One
The first step is to concentrate on taking breaths right down to your stomach (or, more accurately, to your diaphragm muscles). (more…)
By: Rebecca,
on 6/25/2007
Rebecca OUP-US
Scleroderma is a rare chronic disease that manifests in many parts of the body making treatment particuarly difficult. Below, Maureen D. Mayes, M.D., author of The Scleroderma Book: A Guide For Patients and Families advises patients on how to navigate towards health while coordinating so many doctors. June is National Scleroderma Awareness Month, to get involved visit the foundation’s website.
By: Rebecca,
on 4/30/2007
Apparently, April is the month of awareness. It is Poetry, Autism and Alcohol Awareness Month. Today, with the help of Dennis C. Daley and G. Alan Marlatt, we will provide some resources for those suffering from alcohol abuse.
Daley and Marlatt co-authored both a therapist guide and a patient workbook in the Treatments That Work series titled, Overcoming Your Alcohol or Drug Problem: Effective Recovery Strategies. Their books provide practical information and skills to help change destructive behaviors. Below are some ideas from the workbook which help patients get the most out of treatment.
By: Rebecca,
on 4/23/2007
Autism confounds researchers but one way of understanding it is to look through the lens of stress and coping. That is exactly what editors M. Grace Baron, June Groden, Gerald Groden and Lewis P. Lipsitt do in their book Stress and Coping in Autism. Contributions by researchers, clinicians, teachers, and persons living with autism illustrate how it is possible to reduce the impact of stress in autism by understanding both the science and the experience of it. Below we excerpt part of the introduction. To learn more be sure to visit our morning post, Helping Children With Autism Learn.
The construct of stress has expanded our understanding of both typical and atypical human development in a revolutionary way. Research into a number of disorders that are 
often comorbid with a diagnosis of autism, such as anxiety, shyness, phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and thought disorder, already include a systematic theoretical and applied analysis of the contribution of stress to the disorder. Autism, in its own right, might also benefit from such a focus for a number of reasons.
Anxiety, an indicator that someone is experiencing stress, was associated with autism as early as Kanner’s (1943) first description of the syndrome. A few early clinical and research reports (e.g., Marks, 1987; Matson & Love, 1990) examined the correlation between fear and anxiety and autism. In 1994, Groden, Cautela, Prince, and Berryman presented the first systematic framework for using the concepts of stress and anxiety to describe and treat autism and proposed that those with autism may, in fact, have a special vulnerability to stress. We now have a better understanding that the clinical problems often associated with stress, such as anxiety, are more prevalent among people with pervasive developmental disabilities than in the general population.
Autism has long been seen as a problem of faulty or different arousal responses to environmental intrusions (Dawson & Levy, 1989). This has given rise to continued speculation about the role of such patterns of arousal as diagnostic markers or even indicators or subtypes of autism. As early as 1979, Piggott’s review of selected basic research in autism suggested that, “Children called autistic probably represent a complex of clinically similar manifestations in a variety of difference physiological disturbance[s]. Objective markers are needed as to allow the demarcation of subgroups of autistic children for further study” (p. 199). More recently, Tordjman, Spitz, Corinne, Carlier, and Roubertoux (1998) offered a stress-based model of autism, integrating biological and behavioral profiles of individuals wish ASD. They propose that stress and anxiety may be core problems of autism and that an analysis of differential responses to stress can lead to the identification of different subtypes. Similarly, Porges’s The Listening Project (2002) documents hyperarousal and vagal disruptions in children with autism and offers a biologically based behavioral intervention designed to stimulate the social behavior of children with autism.
Some of the known biological or behavioral effects of stress (see McEwen, 2002; Sapolsku, 1998) can be seen in persons with autism. For example, there is recent evidence (Krause, He, Gershwin, & Shoenfeld, 2002) of suppressed immune system function in some persons with autism. Under- or oversentivity to pain is a hallmark behavioral symptom for many with autism, and turbulent sensory and perceptual experiences are documented regularly in first-hand reports (e.g., Jones, Quigney, & Huws, 2003). Fur
