(Medical Xpress) — former Olympian Jarrod Shoemaker was in the middle of the swimming portion of a triathlon in Hamburg, Germany, when the swimmer in front of him accidentally kicked him in the face. Shoemaker finished the race, but could tell something was wrong with how his body was working. Three weeks later, he crashed hard from his bike onto wet pavement during a race in London, adding to his list of injuries.

“Upon returning home I knew that something was wrong besides me just feeling lethargic, apathetic and generally off,” says Shoemaker, a resident of Sudbury, Mass. “I wanted to make sure that there were no long-term problems, especially in a sport like triathlon, where perception and balance are key.

“My coach and I did some reading online about sports concussions and returning from them, and one of the names that we saw over and over was Dr. John Leddy. we did some research on Dr. Leddy and found that he was at the University at Buffalo. Coincidentally, we were headed to Buffalo for U.S. Nationals in two days. It was an amazing piece of fate for me.”

John Leddy, MD, internist, medical orthopedist and associate director of UB’s Sports Medicine Institute, met with Shoemaker at the UB institute’s Concussion Management Clinic to perform a series of tests to discover just how much damage had been done.

One such test involved Shoemaker choosing a target in the room, then shutting his eyes and moving his head, and then attempting to hit the target with a laser pointer while his eyes were still closed. This test measures how well a patient is able to tell where his or her head is facing, which is a sensation controlled by the neck.

“Jarrod could not run fast because his neck injury was aggravated by his posture and by the forces incurred during running,” Leddy says. “Upper neck injuries can produce the same symptoms as a concussion, which is a brain injury.”

Some of these symptoms include poor balance, poor sleep, personality change, nausea and headache, all of which are indicative of how the brain is affected by the injury.

“The brain is a unique organ,” adds Leddy. “You only have one, and you need it for almost everything else.”

After meeting with Shoemaker, discussing his symptoms and putting together the timeline of his injuries, Leddy concluded that Shoemaker’s concussion occurred when he was kicked in the face, and probably was made worse by his crash to the pavement. “Until this time, I had not even thought about these two events as being related,” Shoemaker says. “We came to the realization that the concussion and an upper cervical strain were causing me to have both physical and mental problems. I had never had a concussion before, but it was really interesting seeing how a concussion can really affect everything.”

According to Leddy, athletes who suffer repeated concussions, who do not recover properly, then continue to play with symptoms, are at risk for having permanent brain damage complicated by premature cognitive and emotional dysfunction that affects their lives and their families.

“This can lead to premature death,” Leddy explains. “There is no such thing as a minor concussion. all concussions are significant and must be treated appropriately by physicians familiar with concussion assessment and treatment. with such treatment, most athletes will recover, and be able to return to play safely.”

UB’s Concussion Management Clinic opened in 2007 and serves roughly 150 patients a year, including professional and amateur athletes and people injured at work, home or in car accidents.

When concussion is diagnosed, some patients, like Shoemaker, receive a standardized and scientifically validated exercise treadmill test to determine their degree of recovery from the concussion. Those with prolonged symptoms are prescribed an individualized exercise rehabilitation program based upon the results of the treadmill test.

Leddy and colleagues were the first to use the Balke treadmill protocol, a test usually used for cardiac stress testing, to help physicians determine whether an athlete is ready to return to play.

During the test, the incline of the treadmill is increased by a specific rate every minute. The athlete exercises until the point at which his or her concussion symptoms (headache, for example) become more severe.

“We feel that the best method of determining when athletes are physiologically ready to go back and play sports to maximum intensity is the treadmill test, because the exercise test replicates the physiology of what athletes have to do during sport,” Leddy says.

Based on the UB research, team physicians from around the country are beginning to change the way they manage athletes who have suffered a concussion.

“Dr. Leddy said that I could continue to train, but had to be very careful with how much running I did because of the pounding on my neck,” Shoemaker says.

“For me, taking the time out to finally figure out why my body was feeling so ‘off’ helped me make a big change in the last few races of my season,” he adds. “I raced in Buffalo two days after Dr. Leddy and I met, and I was careful while running, but could feel my body protecting my neck and head. I raced again two weeks later and my body was feeling a lot more like normal. I actually ended up winning the race and winning the U.S. Elite Series.”

Provided by University at Buffalo (news : web)

Menopause Symptoms and Memory Loss- Check Out here!

Written by Liana Badea

While you may experience the misery of hot flashes, mood swings, anxiety, fatigue, insomnia as you enter menopause, one thing you can’t blame on menopause is memory loss.

In the latest studies that blame menopause as a cause of memory loss, researchers compared the memory of hundreds of women who had entered menopause to those who had not, and found very little difference. in four out of the five tests, there were no statistically significant differences in the two groups of women.

The reality is that when women go into menopause, they don’t need to worry about cognitive decline. the researchers said the myth of memory loss during menopause is a perception some women have because as they went through menopause, they felt their memory wasn’t as sharp as it had been before.

Studies suggesting that hormone replacement therapy might protect against dementia strengthened the belief that memory loss is caused by the hormonal imbalance at menopause. However, a large study later found that in older women, hormone replacement therapy not only didn’t help protect women from dementia, but could actually increase the risk. so what is the truth?

The truth is that as you enter menopause that does not mean you’ll develop memory loss. as you’re going through perimenopause and experiencing symptoms like hot flashes, anxiety, fatigue, mood swings, you may feel lousy and have trouble sleeping, which might temporarily affect your cognitive skills. how many times you felt your brain doesn’t work right after a night of insomnia, even if you are not menopausal?

As a final thought, I urge menopausal women to stop blaming menopause for their short or long term memory loss. Memory loss is not caused by the imbalance of estrogen and progesterone at menopause, therefore any hormone replacement therapy will not improve your cognitive skills.

On my-menopause-solutions.com website everyone can find a whole lot more details about memory loss.

This schizophrenia is also known as foldermenia. This is a sub type of schizophrenia, a mental disorder distinguished by hallucinations. In this article we will discuss about disorganized schizophrenia.

Before starting with disorganized schizophrenia let us know some things about schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a major psychiatric disorder belonging to the group of disorders called as psychosis. It is an illness which often has a chronic course with occasional exacerbrations of symptoms rarely ending in total recovery. This disorder is characterized by disturbance in thinking, language and communication, perception, behavior, affect, violation and relation to the external world.

Disorganized schizophrenia

This is believed to be an extreme expression of the ‘disorganization syndrome that has been hypothesized to be one aspect of a three factor model of symptoms in schizophrenia.

Presentation

This type of schizophrenia is characterized by the high up disorganized behavior and speech. This includes schizophasia and flat or inappropriate emotion and affect. let us see the symptoms of disorganized schizophrenia.

• Disorganized thinking

This causes illogical and nonsensical though patterns. the disorganization can be noticed in a way the person talks. A person with disorganized thinking is unable to stay on one track thinking. he is unstable in conversations. he is prone to jump from one topic to other topic often.  This jumping is so rapid that it becomes impossible to understand what the person is talking about. making up of words is very common and written and verbal communication is also much disorganized.

• Grossly disorganized behavior

The disorganized behavior common to this category of schizophrenia causes severe problems regarding the ability to function in daily life. Bathing, dressing, or eating properly becomes impossible. People generally are seen confronting with others without any reason. they can be seen engaging in a sexual behavior at public places.

• Absent or inappropriate emotional expression

A person who has no emotions also called as flat emotions bears a blank face and doesn’t make any eye contact or use common body language. the person may show emotions some time but the range of the expressions expressed by him is very limited. Inappropriate emotions to the situations are also common in the patients who have disorganized schizophrenia. they can act silly or laugh out loudly during a serious event.

Other signs and symptoms of disorganized schizophrenia

Although the main symptoms of is organized schizophrenia have been discussed above, there are some other symptoms also which are seen in the patients suffering from this type of schizophrenia.

• Having beliefs which are not based on reality
• Having hallucinations i.e. seeing or hearing things which do not exist
• Grimacing
• Social isolation
• Clumsy, uncoordinated movements

The treatment of disorganized schizophrenia is not very different from the treatment of other types of treatment. it is done in the following ways:

Antypsytocic medicines are the primary treatment both for acute and chronic schizophrenia. they are effective in controlling the symptoms of acute schzizophrenia and also in preventing relapse in stabilized patients.

Antipsychotic drugs are very helpful in maintenance and stabilizing schizophrenic patients. many patients with schizophrenia are reluctant to take their maintenance medications because of lack of insight, unpleasant side effects and misconceptions about medications and its long term effects. Poor compliance often leads to relapse.

Electro convulsive therapy was originally introduced for the treatment of schizophrenic advances. there is no evidence of specific therauptic efficacy of ECT in chronic schizophrenia. ECT gives best result in catatonic withdrawal and stupor and so presence of catatonic symptoms is an indication for ECT.

Disorganized schizophrenia is not difficult to treat provided the treatment is given and taken in a proper way.

?Down to 1: Depression Stories? by Margarita Go-Singco Holmes, Anvil Publishing, 2010

MYTH: Filipinos don?t get depressed. We?re a happy people, always seeing the silver lining in every cloud.

Fact: 12.4 million Filipinos have suffered or are suffering from clinical depression.

Part of the confusion regarding the popular perception of the happy-go-lucky Pinoy in contrast to the growing number of Filipinos being diagnosed with one form or another of depression lay in terminology.

When the recent World Values Survey showed that the Philippines ranked only 38th out of 52 countries on the ?happiness? scale, many Filipinos were surprised. Offended, even. How can those gloomy Danes (ranked first) be happier than singing, dancing, don?t-stop-believin? us?

As clinical psychologist Margarita Go-Singco Holmes? book points out, being sad or down in the dumps isn?t the same as being clinically depressed.

Clinical depression is a mental illness that Holmes likens to ?a thief. it takes away your joy, sense of wonder, the taste of your favorite food, even the smell of freshly washed hair.?

Therein lies the rub.

Mental illness remains one of the last taboo topics in Philippine society. Many Filipinos would sooner admit to having gonorrhea than any kind of mental problem.

A case in point ? which receives passing mention in the book ? was the accusation made during last year?s presidential election campaign that then candidate Noynoy Aquino had suffered from a depressive episode during his younger years. true or not, the engineers of this propaganda ploy obviously aimed to manipulate the public fear and anxiety that still surrounds the stigma of mental illness.

For men, especially, depression goes against the grain of Pinoy machismo ? it is seen as a sign of weakness, an inability to suck it up and deal with whatever life throws at you.

And yet, as Holmes? book reveals, depression is a disease that can strike anyone, no matter how wealthy, attractive, intelligent or successful one is. it is far more common than one might suspect, given the general reluctance to admit to suffering from depression.

Had Aquino chosen to admit to having been depressed at one point in his life, well so what? it might have immeasurably advanced the cause of mental health in the country. (On the other hand, given the general state of misinformation and misunderstanding that surrounds depression, it might have cost him the election.)

Fortunately, Holmes has found 10 brave souls who have come forward to share their experiences with depression, and how they have come to cope with it, live with it, and overcome it.

Among them are some people you might have heard of, such as designer Patis Tesoro, filmmaker Peque Gallaga, director Lore Reyes, and banker Roman Azanza.

Through frank and, in some cases, soul-baring interviews with Holmes, these ten succeed in lifting the veil that surrounds depression. By sharing their experiences with the symptoms of depression as well as its treatment through therapy and medication, they put the depressive in a clearer, more sympathetic light, and this can only encourage more people suffering from depression to come forward and seek the proper help.

Intended as a primer on depression, ?Down to 1? includes a useful test for determining the level of severity of depression (normal, mild, moderate and severe) and a section whose title is self-explanatory: ?How do I Know If I?m Clinically Depressed.?

This being a Margie Holmes book, there is also a useful section on ?Sex Life Before and After Medication,? which relates the possible side effects that anti-depressants might have, such as decreased libido.

Finally, the book includes a chapter on the final taboo: suicide. apart from dissecting some of the myths surrounding suicide, the book also includes stories by the interviewees regarding suicidal feelings and actual suicide attempts during their lowest points.

If nothing else, the stories in ?Down to 1? should let depression sufferers know that they are not alone in their pain, and that in itself can be therapeutic. ?

While all round agreement always be coming from the sixth or simply sixth full week attached to success, in what way fast capable receive pregnancy symptom is really a research various pregnancy symptoms most women option by themselves. a lot declare they feel symptoms while in the initial two time when success thereafter many verify a person’s some thoughts over a pregnancy symptoms try.

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The availability and wide us of vaccines and the resulting low incidence of the diseases which these vaccines prevent make a lot of parents perceive the disease as “low risk” in general. in late 2008, we could “watch” online how wrong this perception is, when a mother turned to an anti-vaccine board, whose son was developing lock jaw. here is the link (for those of you who speak German or want to put the text through a translation site – my translations and summaries of the board posts are in blue):

The thread is entitled “Jaw problems after Tetanus vaccination”.

Mein Sohn (13 Jahre) hat sich am Knie eine mind. 1,5 cm tiefe Wunde zugezogen. Da es auch noch schmutzig war, (Sand etc.) habe ich den Hausartzt erlaubt ihn gegen Tetanus zu impfen. Er war bis jetzt noch gar nicht geimpft gewesen. 2 Tage später klagte mein Sohn das er sein Mund kaum öffnen könne, essen wurde schwierig, auch Zähneputzen. Alles ist verspannt, Kiefer und Hals tun Weh, vor allem beim kauen.
Meine Frage ist jetzt, ob das eine Folge von Impfen sein kann, oder eine Zufall?
Wenn, ist es alarmierend oder geht`s vorbei automatisch?
Wäre heilfroh, wenn jemand Erfahrung hat mit sowas. Ich würde ungern zu den Arzt gehen, er ist Impffanatiker und ich kämpfe schon seit Jahren mit diese Thema.
In the first post the mom describes that her 13 year old, unvaccinated son sustained a knee injury (1.5 cm deep, dirty, sandy) and because he had not been vaccinated, she allowed his GP to “vaccinate him against tetanus”. two days later, the boy has problems opening his jaw, neck and jaw hurt when he tries to eat or brush teeth. she fears vaccine damage and wonders whether this will pass alone. she is also afraid to take her son to the doctor, because he is “vaccine fanatic”.

At this point, I am thinking “OMG, this boy has tetanus – go see a doctor, but I am just watching, never got a password on this board, since reason is being heavily “moderated” by the board owner and his little helpers. However, the mum’s post is immediately being picked up by the resident vaxxaloons – a poster by the name of Gaston remarks:

“This sounds just like Tetanus Symptoms” (wait if you think “well spotted, now he is going to send her to the doctor”) – he continues “I would assume that your son would not have gotten these symptoms without the vaccine. after all, Tetanus Toxins are injected. So it is not surprising that here we are looking at something like beginning Tetanus.”..

Mum responds “That is just what I thought. So I probably did the wrong thing again.
It is worse today. the boy can hardly eat. I will take him to the doctor at 6pm. I assume he will give a cortisone injection or something like that and tells me that he should have been vaccinated much earlier.
I really don’t know what to do. This has been going on for 4 days and for the child it is very irritating. if at least I knew this is going to pass.
Well, at least I know for sure that none of my children will be vaccinated (this was the first time).”

A poster called “Anke” confirms the mother in her feelings and encourages her to report this as an adverse vaccine event. she also claims to have “heard of such symptoms associated with the tetanus vaccine”.

A day later, she is taking her son to the doctor again. the doctor does not diagnose tetanus, but a throat infection and (because mom does not want him on antibiotics) she takes her son to the local pediatric hospital where he stays for observation. Doctors there think vaccine reaction AND tetanus are “unlikely”.

In the thread, a poster called “Uschi” then shares her experience with jaw problems which she assumes were from her tetanus vaccination, which she later “chelated with the help of her homeopath”.

“Gaston” pitches in with a terrible rant about the doctor. I feel like ranting about that doctor, after all, he did not diagnose the tetanus in a rather unambiguous presentation, but that is not what “Gaston” means. He is on a roll “if this was my child, I would do everything to hold this scumbag accountable. …/… the penicillin treatment, which is counter-indicated in this case, is the worst, because your son could have sustained further damage from it!”

Most further posters share these sentiments, however, “Sonnenlicht” asks whether the boy had received active or passive immunisation, because post-exposure, the boy would have needed immunoglobulins.

Four days have passed since the mum’s first post.

Finally, the child is transferred to the next large University Hospital as the doctors clue in that he has tetanus. the boy can still talk, but cannot eat or drink. in that post, mom also says that her son had the active and passive immunisation a week earlier (that post is on page 2 of the thread). she assumes, her son’s illness is from either of the the two.

Poster “Babsi” refers the mum to a vaccine-critical doctor in Bavaria. Poster “Kat” “knows” from her naturopathic pediatrician that the tetanus vaccine given “in case it has become serious, is particularly critical, i.e. badly tolerated.” she is also adamant that if the wound had been bleeding “it is impossible that this was tetanus, it is vaccine damage!!!” (the three exclamation marks make it true, you know). Apart from that, she recommends a vaccine critical “expert” or “any naturopathic doctor for further help”. “Gaston” totally shares her feelings. “The wound alone did not cause the problems, that was unambiguously the vaccine. it is generally known that vaccines cause the disease they are supposed to protect from in some. some people are more susceptible for this.” He suggests contacting the media “Tetanus after vaccination! because Tetanus is really rare here in Europe.” “Anke” pitches in and recommends Arnica globules in the 200C and consulting a homeopath. General rambling ensues.

A day later we get a chronological account. it appears that the wound was cleaned and sutured soon after the accident, but the immunisations were not given until the control visit 3 days later. the tetanus symptoms started another couple of days after that, so 5 or 6 days after the injury. Mum reports “Everyone in the University Hospital is convinced that he has tetanus from the wound, although it cannot be proven. I do believe it, too. the wound was very deep and got sutured = closed air tight. This disease is very rare. Even in the University Hospital no one had ever seen a single case. my son is better today. He was released from ICU and is on a normal ward now. He can still not open his mouth, but he could drink a little bit.”

After this account, “Sonnenlicht” is also convinced that the tetanus was caused by the wound and that tetanus is an important vaccine after all. However, “presonic” would still not vaccinate in such a situation. S/he doesn’t understand why “the dead flesh was not removed before the wound was sutured.”. “Sonnenlicht” does not buy that. “Anke” just cannot believe that such a wound did not bleed profusely and the mother explains that her son had a bicycle accident on an asphalted path and a deep wound next to the knee that did bleed. she is unsure whether the doctor cleaned the would appropriately.

Two weeks later, we get the resolution that the boy is home again, after nearly two weeks in the hospital on antibiotics, tetanus immunoglobulins and “lots of other medicines”. the mother describes that her son had “not fared as poorly as she was told to expect” – he could breathe on his own and did not get “bad” cramps. He could not open his mouth and his tongue hurt. He started to make an effort to eat when the doctors discussed giving him a stomach probe to feed him.

This story is shocking on several levels. Obviously, I pity the child. an injured knee should not put a 13 year old in the hospital with tetanus. He was obviously very uncomfortable the whole time and mum sounds very desperate, too. the doctors’ reactions in hindsight (which is always 20/20 ) were not stellar, the reaction of the resident anti-vaccine posters on that board are so out-worldly that they look almost staged. they may even have contributed to the delay until the boy was taken to the hospital.

Tetanus in children is very rare – so rare in fact, that doctors do no longer necessarily clue in when they are faced with a child with a locked jaw. However, 80% of the few pediatric cases of tetanus occur in unvaccinated children. they don’t need dramatic injuries, blunt trauma, or minor splinters can be enough of a cause. Tetanus in children is very rare, however, we need to remember that most toddlers (over 96% according to the latest US figures, European figures are similar) have had at least 3 vaccines against tetanus – protection up to the school booster is near perfect, see also here, and most kids in the US will get that first school booster that protects them into adolescence, when 75% of US kids are getting another booster.

So the bottom line is: parents who do not vaccinate against tetanus need to be aware that the low incidence of tetanus is in part due to the high vaccination coverage. they themselves need to keep tetanus in mind when their unvaccinated children have an accident, since doctors might not automatically assume that s/he is looking at one of the 4/100 children who does not have tetanus protection and will almost certainly not have experience with tetanus. if worrying about tetanus with every splinter is too stressful for the parents, the alternative is NOT to post on an anti-vaccine board for encouragement that “head in the sand” is the best option, because 1. vaccines are teh ebil and 2. they are particularly evil after exposure.

The reasonable alternative is to consider vaccination.

There are many myths and misconceptions about dyslexia. A review of dyslexia facts might help you to sort through all the information out there about dyslexia. These dyslexia facts are basic facts that might help with dyslexia awareness as well as help give the reader a handle on what to watch for.

Basic Dyslexia Facts:

• Dyslexia is not a learning disorder in the traditional sense of the concept. Dyslexia is an issue with perception of how the brain processes verbal, auditory or visual information
• Causes of dyslexia could be genetic, congenital or from physical (brain) trauma
• Dyslexia is not something that can be “outgrown” or just “goes away”
• Dyslexic people are not “stupid”-most have average or above average IQs
• Dyslexics, when given the proper skills and encouragement, often thrive and excel
• It is estimated that as many as 1 in 5 people have dyslexia in one form or another in varying degree

Listed below are some of the more common symptoms of dyslexia. this is by no means a complete list, but instead is meant as a very general guideline. Children with dyslexia can exhibit just a few symptoms or numerous ones. Dyslexia is very much a case by case challenge.

As stated before, these are just a few symptoms. further self-study and research of available dyslexia facts is highly recommended. Local health offices and your child’s school councilors should have additional information for you to read. if you feel your child is not working up to their potential in school, you can have a dyslexia screening test done for your child. this is a quick Q and A that can let you know if pursuit of further testing is needed. You are your child’s protector and advocate, but more importantly, you spend more time than anyone with your child and are more suited for noticing most signs than anyone else in his or her life.