As I was reading through the book, I was interested in the sleep-wake disorders because I babysit and am told about different things to be aware of for children. A particular child I watch has sleep terrors and I began to wonder what kind of treatments children could undergo to help there terrors.
The study I found looks at using a drug L -5-HTP. They believe that there is dysfunction in the serotoninergic system. To begin the study, all 45 children went under family history evaluations, sleep evaluations, and EEG recordings and interviewed before being chosen for the study. The patients were then split into two groups, group A was the treatment group and group B was the control. Group A was prescribed 2mg/kg per day to take before bedtime for 20 days. The researchers monitored blood throughout they study to make sure there wasn't a development of EMS. For patients to be considered as respondent to the meds, they had to have 50% or greater reduction in the number of sleep terrors. For group A, 29 our of the 31 patients had positive responses after 1 month. 16 of the 31 were sleep terror free at the one month mark and 2 had effect. Group B had 10 children having the same amount of sleep terrors, for 2 children they disappeared and the remaining 2 had a 50% or more reduction of frequency of the sleep terrors. They then followed up with the children at 6 months. 24 of 31 from group A were sleep terror-free. Another 2 children from group A had a 50% reduction and 5 children still had sleep terrors present. Group B, had one child stay sleep-terror free. The others had a reoccurrence by 6 months or did not show any improvement. This study showed that the L -5-HTP helped to reduce terrors in the long run. This has also been found in other studies that looked at insomnia. Parents of group A did not report any side effects so this study. This does give insight on how to help children with severe sleep terrors. I do wonder what treatments do not involve medication and how we can help children before medicating them for sleep terrors.
Bruni, O., Ferri, R., Miano, S., & Verrillo, E. (2004). L -5-Hydroxytryptophan treatment of sleep terrors in children. European Journal Of Pediatrics, 163(7), 402-407.
This was an interesting post! I wonder if the drug L -5-HTP is widely used now due to the success of the study. I also wonder if the drug would work similarly in autistic children or children with comorbid disorders. Overall, I loved your post!
I also wondered about other treatments besides medications that worked! Haley mentioned in her post that CBT helps, as her article mentioned waking up the child about 30 minutes prior to sleep terror. Good job on your post! It made me interested to see what all else this medication could do, and I found out it is also used for insomnia, migraines, and other sleep disorders!
Megan, Great post! I found the topic of sleep terrors and other sleep issues in children to be very interesting. It's good to know that there is a medication that can be given to effectively reduce the amount of sleep complications that may occur in most children. I would like to more about the possible side effects of taking this medication. If there are any, what are they? Do they harbor differently in children than adults? Thanks for sharing!
This is really interesting! I am not very knowledgeable about sleep terrors in children, but I never would have guessed treatment would include medication. I would sooner believe CBT would be a primary treatment for sleep terrors. I find it so interesting that medication helps in the long-run without severe side effects. I never would think that this sort of problem would call for medications.
Hi Megan, great post! I wonder if children with sleep disturbances typically have parents with sleep disorders? I also wonder if this drug could be a long term solution for children with sleep disturbances. I often had nightmares as a child, and they are less frequent now that I am an adult. Do most children have disturbances into adulthood? I am also glad that the drug has relatively no side effects, because I know that some common sleeping medication has many adverse side effects.
Lauren, Your question brought more questions to me! I never wondered about children and parents both having sleep disorders. I wonder if there is a correlation between the two or if there is any predictor from parents about children with sleep disorders. I wonder what kind of environmental aspects play along with sleep disorders.
While reading the chapter on Health Related Disorders, I was drawn to the Sleep Disturbance disorders as well. I have known of a few children personally that have dealt with this, but I wanted to know how it affected children with Autism and how their treatment works.
I found an article from 2002 by V. Mark Durand that stated while Autistic children already have common sleep disturbances, some suffer from sleep terrors on a chronic basis. Durand's participants were 3 children (two boys, one girl) that were all diagnosed with Autism. Each night, the parents of the children would log data of how their children slept that night, and the children's behavior was before bed and once waking up. Parents were instructed to wake their children approximately 30 minutes before a suspected night terror with a light tap on the back until the child woke up, and then let them fall back asleep. They continued this each night until the child successfully went a full 7 nights without a sleep terror. Once this was achieved, the parents skipped one night the next week, and then added a night each new week. If a night terror occurred at any point during this time, it was to be restarted with awakenings each night. For all three children, at a 12 month follow up, no occurrences of sleep terrors were recorded.
This study showed that waking the child 30 minutes before a night terror helped reduce them, and in the long run, completely remove them from the child's nighttime sleep routine. It shows that there are CBT methods that can help children with sleep terrors rather than medicating them at young ages.
Durand, V. M. (2002). Treating sleep terrors in children with autism. Journal Of Positive Behavior Interventions, 4(2), 66-72. doi:10.1177/109830070200400201
I loved your post! That was a really interesting study. I'd really like to know why that result occurred and the logistics behind it. I wonder if that same method would work with children without autism. Overall, this was a great post!
Hi Haley, great post! I wonder if the areas of the brain that can signify autism are also involved in sleep disturbances? It is surprising that walking can lower night terrors. I wonder if the positive emotions and neurotransmitters that are released during physical exercise can influence the brain away from night terrors.
Haley, This was extremely interesting to read!! I wonder how long did this treatment of waking them up continued before the night terrors eventually went away? After taking several classes, I agree with following along CBT methods first before using medications! I also wonder comparisons between those with and without autism!
Haley, This post was really interesting! I always thought of sleep terrors to be random, but this is interesting to track the sleep patterns and then wake them before it happens. I wonder if this study had more participants, with and without autism, if the results would be the same!
Haley, I found this to be a very interesting read. I have a cousin with Autism, so more studies and seeing significant results could actually help him with night terrors. This makes me want to read more about the relation between night terrors with children with and without autism.
Haley, I really liked your post and found it very interesting! I think it is super cool to show how to help children with night terrors. I was thinking if there was a study done with children who did not have night terrors and if there was the same results. The results would probably be the same so I wonder why they decided just to use autistic children. Overall very interesting post!
Haley, I loved this post! I think it was really interesting that waking a child up thirty minutes before a night terror could stop them. Do you know if anything that has been done on children without autism? I think this might be beneficial for many children.
While reading about Diabetes mellitus I started to wonder about diabetes and eating disorders and their interaction with each other. The reading talking about how children have to be on a certain diet in combination with insulin and exercise to keep their health increased. Intensely monitoring food intake opens the possibility that can be detrimental to certain extent so I thought eating disorders could be likely. The research that I found showed that, “Adolescent girls and young women with type 1 diabetes have an increased risk for eating disorders as well as for milder, subthreshold eating problems…”, females are already more likely to be diagnosed with an eating than males that we know. The study I read looked into the female findings. The article stated, “We found that girls with type 1 diabetes and with a clinical or subthreshold eating disorder displayed higher harm avoidance and lower self-directedness than the girls with no eating pathology”. Harm avoidance is the response to averse stimuli and self directedness is self-identification as an autonomous individual. In the article’s conclusion, a main point stood out that, “Adolescents with type 1 diabetes without an eating disorder had higher self-directedness than adolescents with an Axis I or II disorder, suggesting the possibility that higher self-directedness is a protective factor against psychiatric disturbance, and in particular against an eating disorder”. This would lead me to think that the comorbidity of the two is very much a rare happening. There has also been findings about insulin control being used to lose weight. “In adolescents with type 1 diabetes, these clinical and subthreshold eating disorders are often associated with insulin manipulation for the purpose of weight control”, there is a misusage in youth but at small numbers contrary to my earlier thinking. There has been studies with male adolescents with type I and II considered as well that have found up to 25% of eating disturbances in their eating behaviors. I would be interested in learning about binge eating and bulimia coexisting with diabetes and which American demographics it is effecting the most.
References Grylli, V., Hafferl-Gattermayer, A., Wagner, G., Schober, E., & Karwautz, A. (2005). Eating Disorders and Eating Problems Among Adolescents With Type 1 Diabetes: Exploring Relationships With Temperament and Character. Journal Of Pediatric Psychology, 30(2), 197-206. doi:10.1093/jpepsy/jsi007 d'Emden, H., Holden, L., McDermott, B., Harris, M., Gibbons, K., Gledhill, A., & Cotterill, A. (2012). Concurrent validity of self‐report measures of eating disorders in adolescents with type 1 diabetes. Acta Paediatrica, 101(9), 973-978. doi:10.1111/j.1651-2227.2012.02738.x
I thought your post was interesting! I actually know a little girl who has type 1 diabetes so I connected to your post. I know she struggles with her looks because of the hard time she has eating and I worry as she ages about how that could possibly affect her in the future. Good post!
Your post was really interesting because I never thought that people with Type 1 Diabetes and an eating disorder would be more likely to self-harm themselves. It makes sense that having self-directedness would be a protective factor but I would assume that people with Type 1 Diabetes having this no matter what since they are constantly taking care of their health and have to have extra precautions. I found it interesting that eating disorders and Type 1 Diabetes had a correlation among girls since I wouldn't think that these two would have any connection. It makes me wonder as to what are some of the things that triggered the eating disorder since their main priority should be to control their disease but instead acquired a new one.
Overall your post was very informative and detailed so good job!
The thing that interested me about this chapter was dyssomnia specifically, narcolepsy. I have a coworker who has narcolepsy, but wasn't diagnosed until her 20s. She said that her childhood was very difficult due to the fact that she is consistently tired and never felt as though she got enough sleep even when she did. I can only help but wonder; how well the quality of life is for children who had narcolepsy.
The study I found evaluated the health-related quality of life and its correlation between children and adolescents with narcolepsy. The researchers from the U.K. compared clinical characteristics of control subjects and patients with primary narcolepsy from data collected at the National Reference Centers for Narcolepsy. The cohort included 69 control subjects and 117 patients. 25% of the patients and 15.6% of the control showed clinically significant depressive symptoms. All subjects filled out HRQL questionnaires, and found that, narcolepsy seriously impacts HRQL in terms of vitality, physical well‐being, relations with friends and leisure activities, especially in adolescents. However, depression was a factor that affected both control and patient subjects greatly. Overall, the research suggested that narcoleptic children and adolescents were at high risk for poor HRQL, but more research is needed.
I also was very intrigued to see how someone is tested for narcolepsy and found that is done as a sleep study. I asked my coworker and she informed me that you are hooked up to sensors all over your body and asked to go to sleep, and the doctor will wake you up frequently. She said it was very frustrating, because as soon as she fell asleep she would be waken up.
Inocente, C. O., Gustin, M., Lavault, S., Guignard‐Perret, A., Raoux, A., Christol, N., & ... Franco, P. (2014). Quality of life in children with narcolepsy. CNS Neuroscience & Therapeutics, 20(8), 763-771. doi:10.1111/cns.12291
Regan, Thanks for the post! I find a health disorder such as narcolepsy to be a very interesting one. Your post was similar to mine, in that it questioned how the health disorder effected the quality of life in those who suffer from it. It made a lot of sense how living with narcolepsy can effect several different aspects of a persons life. Sleep is vital to a person's overall health and when we can easily sleep as much as our bodies need, we might not recognize the negative affects it has when we go without it. After reading your post, I wonder about the types of treatment that are available for those living with narcolepsy. Is there medication? Is there a type of behavioral or cognitive therapy available?
Regan, This was a really interesting post! Narcolepsy is just a very interesting disorder to have and it's really cool you found a study on it. I thought it made sense that these kids were struggling with everyday life, because I know how frustrating it is to do anything when I am tired. I can only imagine how these kids feel being tired al the time. I wonder if there is something doctors can do to help these kids feel less tired. Like, do they take iron pills or something? Overall great post!
While reading, I was interested in Childhood Cancer. I wondered if children cancer survivors experienced college differently than children who did not have cancer. I was curious whether childhood cancer survivors had a more difficult time adjusting or managing stress.
I found a recent article by Cantrell, Conte, and Suter about the "College Experience of Childhood Cancer Survivors." It studied five undergraduate cancer survivors from ages 19-22 years old. In the study all five undergraduates also attended the same university, so it is not a large or universal sample by any means. However, the results showed that each student had a great deal of self-awareness and self worth. It also mentions how their emotional growth helped them make a successful transition into college life and they each had positive experiences so far in college. This didn't answer my question about stress, but it did show that they had no trouble adjusting.
I found this interesting, because there weren't many negative experiences mentioned. Actually, many of the students mentioned how their cancer experience influenced their college experience. They mentioned that having cancer taught them many lessons that became useful in college. One thing I would do in future studies would be to get a bigger sample in multiple areas. This would help get a more universal sample with more significant information. Also, it would help if the participants were asked specific ways their cancer/treatment directly influenced their college experiences.
Cantrell, M., Conte, T. M., & Suter, J. (2016). From chemo to college: The college experience of childhood cancer survivors. Journal Of Pediatric Oncology Nursing, 33(5), 329-338. doi:10.1177/1043454215604816
While this is a really interesting post in terms of how what could be seen as an adverse experience can be a positive influence, I'm a little curious about how environment, especially SES, plays a role. College students tend to be higher-SES anyway, and it seems like amount of social and financial support could be helpful to childhood cancer survivors in multiple ways--both good in terms of treatment and recovery and also mediating other stressors (like family conflict, etc). I agree with you that this study would be really compelling if run again with a larger, more diverse sample. Additionally, I'd like to see some quantifiable data on whether they score higher on certain life satisfaction or capability constructs. Good post!
Lauren, This was a very interesting read about positive influence. I wonder if there were more contributions to the relationship of the college experience by the participants, such as grade satisfaction, positive social interactions, etc. Hopefully there can more added to this study to get a higher number of results out. Nice job!
Lauren, I really appreciated your post. I liked the use of current personal experience in combination of the childhood health conditions to find common ground. I am very curious as to what the childhood survivors had to say in detail about their college experiences. I would also like to know the childhood cancer survivors’ opinions on what a “normal” college experience is since all experiences are subjective in some kind of way. Emotional growth and how it affects stress levels is something I would like to see more of in the future. Great job!
Wow Lauren! I wasn't expecting the outcome of your studies, how interesting that they all successfully transitioned into the college atmosphere. I think that says a lot about how much childhood cancer can enlighten a person to really experience everything they can and to their fullest potential. That being said, I agree with you in that I hope there are more studies being worked on to see what the stressors are like for those that have had cancer. Do they find the things we find stressing the same?
While reading the chapter on health related disorders I was very interested in parasomnias, and more specifically nightmares and night terrors. I was not aware that nightmares were considered a disorder because everyone has had nightmares before. I even remember some of the nightmares I used to have as a young child. I wondered if children with anxiety had more nightmares and sleep related problems than children without anxiety.
I found a study done by Candice Alfano, Golda Ginsburg, and Julie Kingery titled "Sleep-Related Problems Among Children and Adolescents With Anxiety Disorders". In this study, 128 children with anxiety disorders were studied for sleep related disorders. These kids were examined before and after treatment by clinicians and the study found that "eighty-eight percent of youth experienced at least one sleep related disorder, and a majority (55%) experienced three or more". This does not surprise me that much because children with anxiety worry throughout the day, so it make sense for them to also worry throughout the night causing sleep related disorders.
Alfano, Candice A., Golda S. Ginsburg, and Julie Newman Kingery. "Sleep-Related Problems Among Children and Adolescents With Anxiety Disorders." ScienceDirect. Elsevier Inc, 4 Jan. 2010. Web. 21 Nov. 2016.
I also never knew nightmares were considered a disorder! I know night terrors are problematic, but I always was under the impression that night terrors were the severe form of nightmares. I'm glad this chapter taught me otherwise. Your question was if children with anxiety had more nightmares and sleep-related problems and I see that your study showed they do tend to have sleep-related disorders, but were nightmares prevalent in these children? I would think insomnia would be common in children with anxiety, but I would like to see a study that finds if children with anxiety have more nightmare-related sleep disorders.
Sleep disorders are interesting, and I think you brought up a good point about how anxiety might make someone more likely to suffering from night terrors. I agree with the comment above; I wonder how prevalent these night terrors are in children with anxiety. Your study revealed that sleep-related disorders are much more common in children with anxiety, but I wish that it specified which disorders they found to be more prevalent. Overall, great post. Thanks for sharing!
I had no idea that nightmares were considered a disorder either! I really enjoyed your post! It does make sense that children with anxiety can also have sleep related disorders. Which is sad because I remember some of my nightmares and as a kid they can be truely terrifying. Over great post I really enjoyed it.
Desiree, This is so interesting! I would have expected this, but I also had never thought much about these two disorders being linked. I wonder which sleep disorders were more prevalent with children with anxiety?
Desiree, I enjoyed your post a lot because I didn't even realize until now how significant of an impact anxiety could have on a child and their sleeping habits. I can't imagine the time that they spend preparing for bed. I remember when I was little my brother had the hardest time sleeping and he was later diagnosed with insomnia and even later down the road he was diagnosed with anxiety. So i wondered if maybe sleep disorders could be precursors to anxiety disorders as well?
One of the topics discussed in the health-related disorders chapter is childhood cancer. I’m sure many of us have been made aware of how prevalent childhood cancer is in our society and how it can affect its victims and their families. I think that many of us can agree that although no person deserves to live their lives with this illness, it can be especially unfair when a child has to live with it. I wanted to know more about how childhood cancer influences the social lives and overall quality of life for those affected by it. One journal article I found discussed a study that was conducted in Japan, which analyzed the effects childhood cancer has a person’s overall quality of life (QOL). They defined the quality of life as including marriage, education, employment, social aspects, and general health. This was a cross-sectional study which compared two groups of young adults: those who were childhood cancer survivors (CCS) and their siblings who had never had cancer in their lifetime. The results showed that the sibling group who did not have cancer had higher rates of living with a partner and not living with a parent when compared to the CCS group. The educational attainment of both groups was about the same, and showed no real significant difference. The unemployment rate was higher in the CCS group when compared to the non-cancer sibling group, and of those who were employed, the non-cancer sibling group had more of what we would consider “white collar jobs” when compared to the CCS group. However, one interesting finding from the study showed a high percentage of the cancer survivors group who worked in the medical field. As for the social aspects, the two groups were about the same. Overall, the study showed that the survivors of childhood cancer were able to still lead full lives, despite the differences that showed when they were compared to their siblings. It is great to hear that although these people might have struggled with a very difficult illness as children, they were still able to show signs of resilience. Ishida, Yasushi, Misato Honda, Kiyoko Kamibeppu, Shuichi Ozono, Jun Okamura, Keiko Asami, Naoko Maeda, Naoko Sakamoto, Hiroko Inada, Tsuyako Iwai, Naoko Kakee, and Keizo Horibe. "Social Outcomes and Quality of Life of Childhood Cancer Survivors in Japan: A Cross-sectional Study on Marriage, Education, Employment and Health-related QOL (SF-36)." International Journal of Hematology 93.5 (2011): 633-44. Web
Lacy, Interesting post! I wonder how/if those statistics might be different in the United States. I found it intriguing how some of the childhood cancer survivors were drawn to work in the medical field later in life. I can relate to this because my brother suffered from a spinal cord injury in his childhood, and seeing him go through therapy led me to want to become an occupational therapist. Thank you for sharing!
Lacey, This is a great article and question! I find it really interesting that those with childhood cancer survivors ended up working within the medical field. I wonder if continued treatment played a part in the fact that those who are CCS had a lower employment rate, or if any of the CCS still had continued treatment. Like Rachel, I wonder if the statistics would be different in the United States as well.
While reading about elimination disorders, I realized there was a higher prevalence in boys. I then began thinking about the other disorders boys are more at risk for, like ADHD, maltreatment, fragile-x (FXS) and prader-willi (PWS) syndromes. As ADHD and maltreatment can be higher risk for boys due to a more social and developmental factor, FXS and PWS are chromosomal based disorders. Leaving me to question the relationship between elimination disorders, FWS, PDS, and boys. I could only find a study showing the relationship between these two intellectual disorders and elimination disorders. This study sent out a survey to 357 people with FXS and PWS, which provided a significantly higher percentage of males. The surveys were a questionnaire of child and young adult behavior checklist, answered by the parents. The results showed that persons with FXS had a significantly higher association with elimination disorders in comparison to PWS. The other significance of this finding is that the FWS population with higher association with elimination disorders also had a higher percentage of males, 92%. While these findings were significant, it was also dependent upon IQ level and comorbidity with other behavioral disorders. It also acknowledged the general problem of incompetence within individuals with ID, and the continuance of this problem into adulthood.
Equit, M., Piro-Hussong, A., Niemczyk, J., Curfs, L., & Gontard, A.V. (2013) Elimination disorders in persons with prader-willi and fragilw-x syndromes. Neurology and urodynamics, 32, 986-992. doi: 10.1002/nau
Kyleigh, I thought your post was extremely interesting. I wish that there was more information on why PWS is more common in boys. I have a friend who just had a baby girl with PWS so, the results from why it is more common in boys would be interesting. I wonder why boys are more incline to get them even if they are genetic.
As I was reading this chapter, I came across chronic illnesses in children, one in particular, asthma. I read that the rate of children being diagnosed with chronic illnesses is rising in the United States. My concern and question is, are we, the United States health facilities, giving enough education about handling and managing chronic illnesses. I came across an article where a study was done to determine the clinical outcomes of asthma management and immune markers. During these studies, airway inflammation, eosinophil counts, pulmonary function and physician contact were measured and surveys about asthma management beliefs and behaviors were taken by children and parents. Results showed that the more understanding a child and parent had about asthma, the better integrated the child was and the parent had a quicker response time towards the child with asthma which led to a lower inflammatory profile within the child. So with that, if more families had the privilege to get educated about behaviors and management towards asthma, this could help reduce the risk of the child having this chronic illness, or at least manage it a lot better.
Walker, H. A., Chim, L., & Chen, E. (2009). The role of asthma management beliefs and behaviors in childhood asthma immune and clinical outcomes. Journal Of Pediatric Psychology, 34(4), 379-388. doi:10.1093/jpepsy/jsn084. Retrieved, November 21, 2016.
Great post! I feel as though a lot of people aren't educated near enough to be able to understand what their child could be going through. It makes sense that if they understood better that it could help reduce the risk or like you said manage it a lot better. Good blog post!
April- Great post! As I was reading I was hoping that there would be positive results regarding education. I believe there should be a better parent education system with regards to chronic illnesses. If you know what to expect and what to do, there will be a better outcome of the illness. Overall, great post! Interesting topic!
April, Really intriguing post! I feel like less people are educated on asthma because, "back then" it wasn't as common as it is now. I wonder if outdoor activity as a child would have anything to do with developing asthma, because I know now kids are playing outside a lot less than they used to. It would be interesting to know if outdoor play contributes to asthma or not.
While reading the chapter on childhood health-related disorders, I was interested in the section about insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. I knew a girl in my elementary school who had type 1 diabetes, and she was very open about her chronic disease and how it affected her daily life. I didn’t know her very well, but I always wondered if taking her blood four times a day and having to eat meals at different times made her feel different. After reading this section and thinking back to her story, I wondered if there is a prevalence of depression in children diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, and what factors might contribute to the vulnerability of the child to become clinically depressed?
I found a study that looked at different factors and how much they affected the probability that a child with type 1 diabetes would develop depression. There were 43 participants in the study that ranged from the ages of 8 to 12 that have been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. The main factor that was studied was how big of a predictor parental overprotection was to the child developing depression. Out of the different subcomponents of parental overprotection that were measured, parental stress was positively correlated with higher levels of depression. Therefore, if a child with type 1 diabetes mellitus is showing depressive symptoms, one should look to the parents’ stress levels to see if that could be contributing to the child’s symptoms. If so, then there are interventions that target parental stress and how it affects their parenting style, which may minimize the child’s stress and depressive symptoms.
Mullins, L. L., Fuemmeler, B. F., Hoff, A., Chaney, J. M., Van Pelt, J., & Ewing, C. A. (2004). The Relationship of Parental Overprotection and Perceived Child Vulnerability to Depressive Symptomotology in Children With Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus: The Moderating Influence of Parenting Stress. Children's Health Care, 33(1), 21-34. doi:10.1207/s15326888chc3301_2
Rachel, Thanks for sharing about your story. I also found the section of diabetes mellitus to be a particularly interesting one. Depression, anxiety, mood disorders the highly likely comorbidity disorders seem to have a connection with parental coping and managing styles. I would like to know once these children with type one diabetes become adolescence do their rates of depression decrease or increase on their own or are the rates still highly reliant on the parents’ stress levels. To me it would make sense to decrease since adolescence is decreasing time spent with parental figures and spending more time with peers. I also like that you incorporated a solution to the question you are asking by talking about the parent interventions. Great post!
Your post was very interesting and I was also wondering about the same question. I found it interesting that a child would be more likely to be depressed if their parents were being overprotective. I would think that the opposite trend would be seen since their parents are there to protect them and make sure that their chronic disease is controlled. It also made me think about the way that the child perceives the overprotection, because some parents might do it in a negative or positive way that can certainly affect a child's way of seeing how their parents are taking care of them. I think that a way to access this is to do a survey of these children ask them how THEY perceive the care their parents provide.
What interested me during the chapter was elimination disorders. Something that I had wondered was the relationship between abused children and elimination disorders. I did end up coming across a study stating that the prevalence is actually pretty significant.
In fact, out of the participants in the study, 67.9% reported physical abuse and 37% reported emotional abuse. This study in particular seemed to be mostly concerned with the rate of abuse as a result of this disorder. I am wondering about the rate of abused children who then result in elimination disorders after. I'm mostly wondering this because of the possibility that a client could be a child who has elimination disorder and a therapist may then begin to wonder if there is also abuse to be concerned with.
Alpaslan, A. H., Koçak, U., Avci, K., & Güzel, H. I. (2016). Association between elimination disorders and abusive maternal attitudes. Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, 40, 22-27. doi:10.1016/j.jflm.2016.02.004
Good post! I thought it was interesting the relation between abuse and elimination disorders. It makes sense, unfortunately, that parents can get frustrated with their child with an elimination disorder. This was a good point to look into because I was wondering myself.
Kristen, I also agree that it is interesting to see the relationship between abuse and elimination disorders. I am unfortunately not surprised, however, I did not expect the rate of physical abuse to be so high. It's sad that so many children are being abused and have this disorder.
Kristen- Great post! It makes sense that there would be a correlation between abuse and elimination disorders. Some parents or guardians can get angry with their child when things don't go exactly the way they want it to. Hopefully the numbers will go down in the future. Overall, good post and interesting topic!
As I was reading through the book, I was interested in the sleep-wake disorders because I babysit and am told about different things to be aware of for children. A particular child I watch has sleep terrors and I began to wonder what kind of treatments children could undergo to help there terrors.
ReplyDeleteThe study I found looks at using a drug L -5-HTP. They believe that there is dysfunction in the serotoninergic system. To begin the study, all 45 children went under family history evaluations, sleep evaluations, and EEG recordings and interviewed before being chosen for the study. The patients were then split into two groups, group A was the treatment group and group B was the control. Group A was prescribed 2mg/kg per day to take before bedtime for 20 days. The researchers monitored blood throughout they study to make sure there wasn't a development of EMS. For patients to be considered as respondent to the meds, they had to have 50% or greater reduction in the number of sleep terrors. For group A, 29 our of the 31 patients had positive responses after 1 month. 16 of the 31 were sleep terror free at the one month mark and 2 had effect. Group B had 10 children having the same amount of sleep terrors, for 2 children they disappeared and the remaining 2 had a 50% or more reduction of frequency of the sleep terrors. They then followed up with the children at 6 months. 24 of 31 from group A were sleep terror-free. Another 2 children from group A had a 50% reduction and 5 children still had sleep terrors present. Group B, had one child stay sleep-terror free. The others had a reoccurrence by 6 months or did not show any improvement.
This study showed that the L -5-HTP helped to reduce terrors in the long run. This has also been found in other studies that looked at insomnia. Parents of group A did not report any side effects so this study. This does give insight on how to help children with severe sleep terrors. I do wonder what treatments do not involve medication and how we can help children before medicating them for sleep terrors.
Bruni, O., Ferri, R., Miano, S., & Verrillo, E. (2004). L -5-Hydroxytryptophan treatment of sleep terrors in children. European Journal Of Pediatrics, 163(7), 402-407.
Megan,
DeleteThis was an interesting post! I wonder if the drug L -5-HTP is widely used now due to the success of the study. I also wonder if the drug would work similarly in autistic children or children with comorbid disorders. Overall, I loved your post!
Erin Cameron
Megan,
DeleteI also wondered about other treatments besides medications that worked! Haley mentioned in her post that CBT helps, as her article mentioned waking up the child about 30 minutes prior to sleep terror. Good job on your post! It made me interested to see what all else this medication could do, and I found out it is also used for insomnia, migraines, and other sleep disorders!
Megan,
DeleteGreat post! I found the topic of sleep terrors and other sleep issues in children to be very interesting. It's good to know that there is a medication that can be given to effectively reduce the amount of sleep complications that may occur in most children. I would like to more about the possible side effects of taking this medication. If there are any, what are they? Do they harbor differently in children than adults? Thanks for sharing!
Megan,
DeleteThis is really interesting! I am not very knowledgeable about sleep terrors in children, but I never would have guessed treatment would include medication. I would sooner believe CBT would be a primary treatment for sleep terrors. I find it so interesting that medication helps in the long-run without severe side effects. I never would think that this sort of problem would call for medications.
Hi Megan, great post! I wonder if children with sleep disturbances typically have parents with sleep disorders? I also wonder if this drug could be a long term solution for children with sleep disturbances. I often had nightmares as a child, and they are less frequent now that I am an adult. Do most children have disturbances into adulthood? I am also glad that the drug has relatively no side effects, because I know that some common sleeping medication has many adverse side effects.
ReplyDeleteLauren,
DeleteYour question brought more questions to me! I never wondered about children and parents both having sleep disorders. I wonder if there is a correlation between the two or if there is any predictor from parents about children with sleep disorders. I wonder what kind of environmental aspects play along with sleep disorders.
While reading the chapter on Health Related Disorders, I was drawn to the Sleep Disturbance disorders as well. I have known of a few children personally that have dealt with this, but I wanted to know how it affected children with Autism and how their treatment works.
ReplyDeleteI found an article from 2002 by V. Mark Durand that stated while Autistic children already have common sleep disturbances, some suffer from sleep terrors on a chronic basis. Durand's participants were 3 children (two boys, one girl) that were all diagnosed with Autism. Each night, the parents of the children would log data of how their children slept that night, and the children's behavior was before bed and once waking up. Parents were instructed to wake their children approximately 30 minutes before a suspected night terror with a light tap on the back until the child woke up, and then let them fall back asleep. They continued this each night until the child successfully went a full 7 nights without a sleep terror. Once this was achieved, the parents skipped one night the next week, and then added a night each new week. If a night terror occurred at any point during this time, it was to be restarted with awakenings each night. For all three children, at a 12 month follow up, no occurrences of sleep terrors were recorded.
This study showed that waking the child 30 minutes before a night terror helped reduce them, and in the long run, completely remove them from the child's nighttime sleep routine. It shows that there are CBT methods that can help children with sleep terrors rather than medicating them at young ages.
Durand, V. M. (2002). Treating sleep terrors in children with autism. Journal Of Positive Behavior Interventions, 4(2), 66-72. doi:10.1177/109830070200400201
Haley,
DeleteI loved your post! That was a really interesting study. I'd really like to know why that result occurred and the logistics behind it. I wonder if that same method would work with children without autism. Overall, this was a great post!
Erin Cameron
Hi Haley, great post! I wonder if the areas of the brain that can signify autism are also involved in sleep disturbances? It is surprising that walking can lower night terrors. I wonder if the positive emotions and neurotransmitters that are released during physical exercise can influence the brain away from night terrors.
DeleteHaley,
DeleteThis was extremely interesting to read!! I wonder how long did this treatment of waking them up continued before the night terrors eventually went away? After taking several classes, I agree with following along CBT methods first before using medications! I also wonder comparisons between those with and without autism!
Haley,
DeleteThis post was really interesting! I always thought of sleep terrors to be random, but this is interesting to track the sleep patterns and then wake them before it happens. I wonder if this study had more participants, with and without autism, if the results would be the same!
Haley,
DeleteI found this to be a very interesting read. I have a cousin with Autism, so more studies and seeing significant results could actually help him with night terrors. This makes me want to read more about the relation between night terrors with children with and without autism.
Haley,
DeleteI really liked your post and found it very interesting! I think it is super cool to show how to help children with night terrors. I was thinking if there was a study done with children who did not have night terrors and if there was the same results. The results would probably be the same so I wonder why they decided just to use autistic children.
Overall very interesting post!
Haley,
DeleteI loved this post! I think it was really interesting that waking a child up thirty minutes before a night terror could stop them. Do you know if anything that has been done on children without autism? I think this might be beneficial for many children.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWhile reading about Diabetes mellitus I started to wonder about diabetes and eating disorders and their interaction with each other. The reading talking about how children have to be on a certain diet in combination with insulin and exercise to keep their health increased. Intensely monitoring food intake opens the possibility that can be detrimental to certain extent so I thought eating disorders could be likely.
ReplyDeleteThe research that I found showed that, “Adolescent girls and young women with type 1 diabetes have an increased risk for eating disorders as well as for milder, subthreshold eating problems…”, females are already more likely to be diagnosed with an eating than males that we know. The study I read looked into the female findings. The article stated, “We found that girls with type 1 diabetes and with a clinical or subthreshold eating disorder displayed higher harm avoidance and lower self-directedness than the girls with no eating pathology”. Harm avoidance is the response to averse stimuli and self directedness is self-identification as an autonomous individual. In the article’s conclusion, a main point stood out that, “Adolescents with type 1 diabetes without an eating disorder had higher self-directedness than adolescents with an Axis I or II disorder, suggesting the possibility that higher self-directedness is a protective factor against psychiatric disturbance, and in particular against an eating disorder”. This would lead me to think that the comorbidity of the two is very much a rare happening.
There has also been findings about insulin control being used to lose weight. “In adolescents with type 1 diabetes, these clinical and subthreshold eating disorders are often associated with insulin manipulation for the purpose of weight control”, there is a misusage in youth but at small numbers contrary to my earlier thinking. There has been studies with male adolescents with type I and II considered as well that have found up to 25% of eating disturbances in their eating behaviors. I would be interested in learning about binge eating and bulimia coexisting with diabetes and which American demographics it is effecting the most.
References
Grylli, V., Hafferl-Gattermayer, A., Wagner, G., Schober, E., & Karwautz, A. (2005). Eating Disorders and Eating Problems Among Adolescents With Type 1 Diabetes: Exploring Relationships With Temperament and Character. Journal Of Pediatric Psychology, 30(2), 197-206. doi:10.1093/jpepsy/jsi007
d'Emden, H., Holden, L., McDermott, B., Harris, M., Gibbons, K., Gledhill, A., & Cotterill, A. (2012). Concurrent validity of self‐report measures of eating disorders in adolescents with type 1 diabetes. Acta Paediatrica, 101(9), 973-978. doi:10.1111/j.1651-2227.2012.02738.x
I thought your post was interesting! I actually know a little girl who has type 1 diabetes so I connected to your post. I know she struggles with her looks because of the hard time she has eating and I worry as she ages about how that could possibly affect her in the future. Good post!
DeleteHi Chris,
DeleteYour post was really interesting because I never thought that people with Type 1 Diabetes and an eating disorder would be more likely to self-harm themselves. It makes sense that having self-directedness would be a protective factor but I would assume that people with Type 1 Diabetes having this no matter what since they are constantly taking care of their health and have to have extra precautions. I found it interesting that eating disorders and Type 1 Diabetes had a correlation among girls since I wouldn't think that these two would have any connection. It makes me wonder as to what are some of the things that triggered the eating disorder since their main priority should be to control their disease but instead acquired a new one.
Overall your post was very informative and detailed so good job!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe thing that interested me about this chapter was dyssomnia specifically, narcolepsy. I have a coworker who has narcolepsy, but wasn't diagnosed until her 20s. She said that her childhood was very difficult due to the fact that she is consistently tired and never felt as though she got enough sleep even when she did. I can only help but wonder; how well the quality of life is for children who had narcolepsy.
ReplyDeleteThe study I found evaluated the health-related quality of life and its correlation between children and adolescents with narcolepsy. The researchers from the U.K. compared clinical characteristics of control subjects and patients with primary narcolepsy from data collected at the National Reference Centers for Narcolepsy. The cohort included 69 control subjects and 117 patients. 25% of the patients and 15.6% of the control showed clinically significant depressive symptoms. All subjects filled out HRQL questionnaires, and found that, narcolepsy seriously impacts HRQL in terms of vitality, physical well‐being, relations with friends and leisure activities, especially in adolescents. However, depression was a factor that affected both control and patient subjects greatly. Overall, the research suggested that narcoleptic children and adolescents were at high risk for poor HRQL, but more research is needed.
I also was very intrigued to see how someone is tested for narcolepsy and found that is done as a sleep study. I asked my coworker and she informed me that you are hooked up to sensors all over your body and asked to go to sleep, and the doctor will wake you up frequently. She said it was very frustrating, because as soon as she fell asleep she would be waken up.
Inocente, C. O., Gustin, M., Lavault, S., Guignard‐Perret, A., Raoux, A., Christol, N., & ... Franco, P. (2014). Quality of life in children with narcolepsy. CNS Neuroscience & Therapeutics, 20(8), 763-771. doi:10.1111/cns.12291
Regan,
DeleteThanks for the post! I find a health disorder such as narcolepsy to be a very interesting one. Your post was similar to mine, in that it questioned how the health disorder effected the quality of life in those who suffer from it. It made a lot of sense how living with narcolepsy can effect several different aspects of a persons life. Sleep is vital to a person's overall health and when we can easily sleep as much as our bodies need, we might not recognize the negative affects it has when we go without it. After reading your post, I wonder about the types of treatment that are available for those living with narcolepsy. Is there medication? Is there a type of behavioral or cognitive therapy available?
Regan,
DeleteThis was a really interesting post! Narcolepsy is just a very interesting disorder to have and it's really cool you found a study on it. I thought it made sense that these kids were struggling with everyday life, because I know how frustrating it is to do anything when I am tired. I can only imagine how these kids feel being tired al the time. I wonder if there is something doctors can do to help these kids feel less tired. Like, do they take iron pills or something?
Overall great post!
While reading, I was interested in Childhood Cancer. I wondered if children cancer survivors experienced college differently than children who did not have cancer. I was curious whether childhood cancer survivors had a more difficult time adjusting or managing stress.
ReplyDeleteI found a recent article by Cantrell, Conte, and Suter about the "College Experience of Childhood Cancer Survivors." It studied five undergraduate cancer survivors from ages 19-22 years old. In the study all five undergraduates also attended the same university, so it is not a large or universal sample by any means. However, the results showed that each student had a great deal of self-awareness and self worth. It also mentions how their emotional growth helped them make a successful transition into college life and they each had positive experiences so far in college. This didn't answer my question about stress, but it did show that they had no trouble adjusting.
I found this interesting, because there weren't many negative experiences mentioned. Actually, many of the students mentioned how their cancer experience influenced their college experience. They mentioned that having cancer taught them many lessons that became useful in college. One thing I would do in future studies would be to get a bigger sample in multiple areas. This would help get a more universal sample with more significant information. Also, it would help if the participants were asked specific ways their cancer/treatment directly influenced their college experiences.
Cantrell, M., Conte, T. M., & Suter, J. (2016). From chemo to college: The college experience of childhood cancer survivors. Journal Of Pediatric Oncology Nursing, 33(5), 329-338. doi:10.1177/1043454215604816
Hi, Lauren,
DeleteWhile this is a really interesting post in terms of how what could be seen as an adverse experience can be a positive influence, I'm a little curious about how environment, especially SES, plays a role. College students tend to be higher-SES anyway, and it seems like amount of social and financial support could be helpful to childhood cancer survivors in multiple ways--both good in terms of treatment and recovery and also mediating other stressors (like family conflict, etc). I agree with you that this study would be really compelling if run again with a larger, more diverse sample. Additionally, I'd like to see some quantifiable data on whether they score higher on certain life satisfaction or capability constructs. Good post!
Lauren,
DeleteThis was a very interesting read about positive influence. I wonder if there were more contributions to the relationship of the college experience by the participants, such as grade satisfaction, positive social interactions, etc. Hopefully there can more added to this study to get a higher number of results out. Nice job!
Lauren,
DeleteI really appreciated your post. I liked the use of current personal experience in combination of the childhood health conditions to find common ground. I am very curious as to what the childhood survivors had to say in detail about their college experiences. I would also like to know the childhood cancer survivors’ opinions on what a “normal” college experience is since all experiences are subjective in some kind of way. Emotional growth and how it affects stress levels is something I would like to see more of in the future. Great job!
Wow Lauren!
DeleteI wasn't expecting the outcome of your studies, how interesting that they all successfully transitioned into the college atmosphere. I think that says a lot about how much childhood cancer can enlighten a person to really experience everything they can and to their fullest potential. That being said, I agree with you in that I hope there are more studies being worked on to see what the stressors are like for those that have had cancer. Do they find the things we find stressing the same?
While reading the chapter on health related disorders I was very interested in parasomnias, and more specifically nightmares and night terrors. I was not aware that nightmares were considered a disorder because everyone has had nightmares before. I even remember some of the nightmares I used to have as a young child. I wondered if children with anxiety had more nightmares and sleep related problems than children without anxiety.
ReplyDeleteI found a study done by Candice Alfano, Golda Ginsburg, and Julie Kingery titled "Sleep-Related Problems Among Children and Adolescents With Anxiety Disorders". In this study, 128 children with anxiety disorders were studied for sleep related disorders. These kids were examined before and after treatment by clinicians and the study found that "eighty-eight percent of youth experienced at least one sleep related disorder, and a majority (55%) experienced three or more". This does not surprise me that much because children with anxiety worry throughout the day, so it make sense for them to also worry throughout the night causing sleep related disorders.
Alfano, Candice A., Golda S. Ginsburg, and Julie Newman Kingery. "Sleep-Related Problems Among Children and Adolescents With Anxiety Disorders." ScienceDirect. Elsevier Inc, 4 Jan. 2010. Web. 21 Nov. 2016.
Desiree,
DeleteI also never knew nightmares were considered a disorder! I know night terrors are problematic, but I always was under the impression that night terrors were the severe form of nightmares. I'm glad this chapter taught me otherwise. Your question was if children with anxiety had more nightmares and sleep-related problems and I see that your study showed they do tend to have sleep-related disorders, but were nightmares prevalent in these children? I would think insomnia would be common in children with anxiety, but I would like to see a study that finds if children with anxiety have more nightmare-related sleep disorders.
Desiree,
DeleteSleep disorders are interesting, and I think you brought up a good point about how anxiety might make someone more likely to suffering from night terrors. I agree with the comment above; I wonder how prevalent these night terrors are in children with anxiety. Your study revealed that sleep-related disorders are much more common in children with anxiety, but I wish that it specified which disorders they found to be more prevalent. Overall, great post. Thanks for sharing!
I had no idea that nightmares were considered a disorder either! I really enjoyed your post! It does make sense that children with anxiety can also have sleep related disorders. Which is sad because I remember some of my nightmares and as a kid they can be truely terrifying. Over great post I really enjoyed it.
DeleteDesiree,
DeleteThis is so interesting! I would have expected this, but I also had never thought much about these two disorders being linked. I wonder which sleep disorders were more prevalent with children with anxiety?
Desiree,
DeleteI enjoyed your post a lot because I didn't even realize until now how significant of an impact anxiety could have on a child and their sleeping habits. I can't imagine the time that they spend preparing for bed. I remember when I was little my brother had the hardest time sleeping and he was later diagnosed with insomnia and even later down the road he was diagnosed with anxiety. So i wondered if maybe sleep disorders could be precursors to anxiety disorders as well?
One of the topics discussed in the health-related disorders chapter is childhood cancer. I’m sure many of us have been made aware of how prevalent childhood cancer is in our society and how it can affect its victims and their families. I think that many of us can agree that although no person deserves to live their lives with this illness, it can be especially unfair when a child has to live with it. I wanted to know more about how childhood cancer influences the social lives and overall quality of life for those affected by it.
ReplyDeleteOne journal article I found discussed a study that was conducted in Japan, which analyzed the effects childhood cancer has a person’s overall quality of life (QOL). They defined the quality of life as including marriage, education, employment, social aspects, and general health. This was a cross-sectional study which compared two groups of young adults: those who were childhood cancer survivors (CCS) and their siblings who had never had cancer in their lifetime. The results showed that the sibling group who did not have cancer had higher rates of living with a partner and not living with a parent when compared to the CCS group. The educational attainment of both groups was about the same, and showed no real significant difference. The unemployment rate was higher in the CCS group when compared to the non-cancer sibling group, and of those who were employed, the non-cancer sibling group had more of what we would consider “white collar jobs” when compared to the CCS group. However, one interesting finding from the study showed a high percentage of the cancer survivors group who worked in the medical field. As for the social aspects, the two groups were about the same. Overall, the study showed that the survivors of childhood cancer were able to still lead full lives, despite the differences that showed when they were compared to their siblings. It is great to hear that although these people might have struggled with a very difficult illness as children, they were still able to show signs of resilience.
Ishida, Yasushi, Misato Honda, Kiyoko Kamibeppu, Shuichi Ozono, Jun Okamura, Keiko Asami, Naoko Maeda, Naoko Sakamoto, Hiroko Inada, Tsuyako Iwai, Naoko Kakee, and Keizo Horibe. "Social Outcomes and Quality of Life of Childhood Cancer Survivors in Japan: A Cross-sectional Study on Marriage, Education, Employment and Health-related QOL (SF-36)." International Journal of Hematology 93.5 (2011): 633-44. Web
Lacy,
DeleteInteresting post! I wonder how/if those statistics might be different in the United States. I found it intriguing how some of the childhood cancer survivors were drawn to work in the medical field later in life. I can relate to this because my brother suffered from a spinal cord injury in his childhood, and seeing him go through therapy led me to want to become an occupational therapist. Thank you for sharing!
Lacey,
DeleteThis is a great article and question! I find it really interesting that those with childhood cancer survivors ended up working within the medical field. I wonder if continued treatment played a part in the fact that those who are CCS had a lower employment rate, or if any of the CCS still had continued treatment. Like Rachel, I wonder if the statistics would be different in the United States as well.
While reading about elimination disorders, I realized there was a higher prevalence in boys. I then began thinking about the other disorders boys are more at risk for, like ADHD, maltreatment, fragile-x (FXS) and prader-willi (PWS) syndromes. As ADHD and maltreatment can be higher risk for boys due to a more social and developmental factor, FXS and PWS are chromosomal based disorders. Leaving me to question the relationship between elimination disorders, FWS, PDS, and boys. I could only find a study showing the relationship between these two intellectual disorders and elimination disorders. This study sent out a survey to 357 people with FXS and PWS, which provided a significantly higher percentage of males. The surveys were a questionnaire of child and young adult behavior checklist, answered by the parents. The results showed that persons with FXS had a significantly higher association with elimination disorders in comparison to PWS. The other significance of this finding is that the FWS population with higher association with elimination disorders also had a higher percentage of males, 92%. While these findings were significant, it was also dependent upon IQ level and comorbidity with other behavioral disorders. It also acknowledged the general problem of incompetence within individuals with ID, and the continuance of this problem into adulthood.
ReplyDeleteEquit, M., Piro-Hussong, A., Niemczyk, J., Curfs, L., & Gontard, A.V. (2013) Elimination disorders in persons with prader-willi and fragilw-x syndromes. Neurology and urodynamics, 32, 986-992. doi: 10.1002/nau
Kyleigh,
DeleteI thought your post was extremely interesting. I wish that there was more information on why PWS is more common in boys. I have a friend who just had a baby girl with PWS so, the results from why it is more common in boys would be interesting. I wonder why boys are more incline to get them even if they are genetic.
As I was reading this chapter, I came across chronic illnesses in children, one in particular, asthma. I read that the rate of children being diagnosed with chronic illnesses is rising in the United States. My concern and question is, are we, the United States health facilities, giving enough education about handling and managing chronic illnesses.
ReplyDeleteI came across an article where a study was done to determine the clinical outcomes of asthma management and immune markers. During these studies, airway inflammation, eosinophil counts, pulmonary function and physician contact were measured and surveys about asthma management beliefs and behaviors were taken by children and parents. Results showed that the more understanding a child and parent had about asthma, the better integrated the child was and the parent had a quicker response time towards the child with asthma which led to a lower inflammatory profile within the child. So with that, if more families had the privilege to get educated about behaviors and management towards asthma, this could help reduce the risk of the child having this chronic illness, or at least manage it a lot better.
Walker, H. A., Chim, L., & Chen, E. (2009). The role of asthma management beliefs and behaviors in childhood asthma immune and clinical outcomes. Journal Of Pediatric Psychology, 34(4), 379-388. doi:10.1093/jpepsy/jsn084. Retrieved, November 21, 2016.
DeleteGreat post! I feel as though a lot of people aren't educated near enough to be able to understand what their child could be going through. It makes sense that if they understood better that it could help reduce the risk or like you said manage it a lot better. Good blog post!
DeleteApril-
DeleteGreat post! As I was reading I was hoping that there would be positive results regarding education. I believe there should be a better parent education system with regards to chronic illnesses. If you know what to expect and what to do, there will be a better outcome of the illness. Overall, great post! Interesting topic!
April,
DeleteReally intriguing post! I feel like less people are educated on asthma because, "back then" it wasn't as common as it is now. I wonder if outdoor activity as a child would have anything to do with developing asthma, because I know now kids are playing outside a lot less than they used to. It would be interesting to know if outdoor play contributes to asthma or not.
While reading the chapter on childhood health-related disorders, I was interested in the section about insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. I knew a girl in my elementary school who had type 1 diabetes, and she was very open about her chronic disease and how it affected her daily life. I didn’t know her very well, but I always wondered if taking her blood four times a day and having to eat meals at different times made her feel different. After reading this section and thinking back to her story, I wondered if there is a prevalence of depression in children diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, and what factors might contribute to the vulnerability of the child to become clinically depressed?
ReplyDeleteI found a study that looked at different factors and how much they affected the probability that a child with type 1 diabetes would develop depression. There were 43 participants in the study that ranged from the ages of 8 to 12 that have been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. The main factor that was studied was how big of a predictor parental overprotection was to the child developing depression. Out of the different subcomponents of parental overprotection that were measured, parental stress was positively correlated with higher levels of depression. Therefore, if a child with type 1 diabetes mellitus is showing depressive symptoms, one should look to the parents’ stress levels to see if that could be contributing to the child’s symptoms. If so, then there are interventions that target parental stress and how it affects their parenting style, which may minimize the child’s stress and depressive symptoms.
Mullins, L. L., Fuemmeler, B. F., Hoff, A., Chaney, J. M., Van Pelt, J., & Ewing, C. A. (2004). The Relationship of Parental Overprotection and Perceived Child Vulnerability to Depressive Symptomotology in Children With Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus: The Moderating Influence of Parenting Stress. Children's Health Care, 33(1), 21-34. doi:10.1207/s15326888chc3301_2
Rachel,
DeleteThanks for sharing about your story. I also found the section of diabetes mellitus to be a particularly interesting one. Depression, anxiety, mood disorders the highly likely comorbidity disorders seem to have a connection with parental coping and managing styles. I would like to know once these children with type one diabetes become adolescence do their rates of depression decrease or increase on their own or are the rates still highly reliant on the parents’ stress levels. To me it would make sense to decrease since adolescence is decreasing time spent with parental figures and spending more time with peers. I also like that you incorporated a solution to the question you are asking by talking about the parent interventions. Great post!
Hi Rachel,
DeleteYour post was very interesting and I was also wondering about the same question. I found it interesting that a child would be more likely to be depressed if their parents were being overprotective. I would think that the opposite trend would be seen since their parents are there to protect them and make sure that their chronic disease is controlled. It also made me think about the way that the child perceives the overprotection, because some parents might do it in a negative or positive way that can certainly affect a child's way of seeing how their parents are taking care of them. I think that a way to access this is to do a survey of these children ask them how THEY perceive the care their parents provide.
Overall, good post!
What interested me during the chapter was elimination disorders. Something that I had wondered was the relationship between abused children and elimination disorders. I did end up coming across a study stating that the prevalence is actually pretty significant.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, out of the participants in the study, 67.9% reported physical abuse and 37% reported emotional abuse. This study in particular seemed to be mostly concerned with the rate of abuse as a result of this disorder. I am wondering about the rate of abused children who then result in elimination disorders after. I'm mostly wondering this because of the possibility that a client could be a child who has elimination disorder and a therapist may then begin to wonder if there is also abuse to be concerned with.
Alpaslan, A. H., Koçak, U., Avci, K., & Güzel, H. I. (2016). Association between elimination disorders and abusive maternal attitudes. Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, 40, 22-27. doi:10.1016/j.jflm.2016.02.004
Good post! I thought it was interesting the relation between abuse and elimination disorders. It makes sense, unfortunately, that parents can get frustrated with their child with an elimination disorder. This was a good point to look into because I was wondering myself.
DeleteKristen,
DeleteI also agree that it is interesting to see the relationship between abuse and elimination disorders. I am unfortunately not surprised, however, I did not expect the rate of physical abuse to be so high. It's sad that so many children are being abused and have this disorder.
Kristen-
DeleteGreat post! It makes sense that there would be a correlation between abuse and elimination disorders. Some parents or guardians can get angry with their child when things don't go exactly the way they want it to. Hopefully the numbers will go down in the future. Overall, good post and interesting topic!