In the United States, more than 2,700 new cases of eye cancer are diagnosed each year, according to the American Cancer Society, and the mortality rate is high for the disease. Some patients undergo a life-saving surgery known as exenteration that involves removing the contents of the eye socket and other tissue…
The November Neurosurgery also reports on unusual language side effects in patients undergoing electrical brain stimulation for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and presents plans for a pilot study of a new vaccine therapy for patients with aggressive brain cancers called gliomas. Variations in Management of Child Brain Injury Dr…
There’s a new breed of airport dog. They aren’t looking for drugs or bombs — they are looking for people who need a buddy, a belly to rub or a paw to shake. “His job is to be touched,” volunteer Kyra Hubis said about Henry James, her 5-year-old golden retriever that works a few hours a week at the San Jose airport. “I am just standing there with him. They are talking to him. If I need to answer for him, I do. But I am at the end of his leash, he’s not at the end of mine.” Mineta San Jose International Airport is widely credited with introducing the first airport therapy dog in the days after Sept. 11, 2001, when flights were grounded, passengers were stranded and reaching friends and relatives in the East was nearly impossible. Passengers were anxious and afraid. Enter Orion, owned by a volunteer airport chaplain who got permission to bring the dog to work. He made such a difference that San Jose formalized the program and now has nine dogs. Miami International Airport got onboard the program with one and Los Angeles International Airport has 30 and is hoping to expand its program. The dogs are intended to take the stress out of travel — the crowds, long lines and terrorism concerns. You never know why people are flying, said Heidi Huebner, director of volunteers at LAX, which launched Pets Unstressing Passengers (PUPs) in April. Travelers might be in town for a vacation, a funeral, to visit a sick family member or to attend a business meeting. “You can literally feel the stress levels drop, people start smiling, strangers start talking to each other and everybody walks away feeling really, really good,” Huebner said. Dogs have to be healthy, skilled, stable, well-mannered and able to work on a slack 4-foot leash, said Billie Smith, executive director of Wyoming-based Therapy Dogs, Inc., which certifies the LAX animals. They have to be comfortable with crowds, sounds, smells — and they need to pass through security like all airport workers. Handlers are taught to watch for people who fear or dislike dogs or those who might have allergies. In most cases, people approach the dogs, identifiable by the vests or bandannas they wear. Los Angeles’ dogs, which are featured on trading cards, are as varied as its airport passengers. There’s a long-haired Dalmatian, a Lab-pointer mix, a field spaniel, a poodle, three Australian Labradoodles, a Doberman and a 150-pound Irish wolfhound named Finn who has two tricks. “He looks you in the eye and lays down on the job,” said owner Brian Valente. “When I’m around Finn, it makes me feel like things are OK. When Finn’s around other people, they are OK. It’s almost instant, even if just for a moment,” Valente said. Miami’s sole dog, Casey, a 4-year-old golden retriever, is a star. She has her own website, fan mail, business cards and a role on “Airport 24/7: Miami,” a weekly reality show on the Travel Channel. “Casey is so pure and genuine,” explained Dickie Davis, director of terminal operations and customer service. “She’s not asking for anything or selling anything. She is just a love magnet.” When Claudia McCaskill’s family recently flew home from vacation in Brazil she requested Casey meet the plane to greet her 5-year-old daughter, Carina, who is autistic. She knew Carina would be low on energy and patience and they still had a 2.5-hour drive home to St. Lucie. Casey and handler Liz Miller were there with a gift basket and Carina fell in love with the dog. “Thank you for visiting us at the airport so I would be happy,” Carina said in a video the family made for Casey. Now Carina wants to go back and see Casey again. “I can’t say how much we appreciate what they did for us. It not only helped our daughter, but us too,” McCaskill said. Despite all the smiles, there are also hard moments. Before departing from San Jose, a soldier kneeled down and told Henry James: “OK, buddy, you take care of the house while I am gone,” Hubis said. A woman who said her husband of 40 years told her he wanted a divorce that morning wept on Henry’s shoulder. “He just sat there,” Hubis said. “He knew. He can feel.”source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/10/airport-therapy-dogs-take-stress-out-travel/
Taking Ritalin and other drugs for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) doesn't affect a child's chances of trying or abusing alcohol and drugs later in life, a new review suggests. Researchers pooled data from 15 studies that included a total of 2,600 kids and teenagers with ADHD who were or were not medicated with stimulants and were followed for anywhere from 3 to 28 years. They found no clear difference in how many participants started using or abusing alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana or cocaine, based on how their ADHD was managed. “The scientific evidence suggests that the risk for alcohol and substance problems later in development, in adolescence or adulthood, doesn't seem to be strongly tied to whether or not children were previously… treated with stimulant medication,” said psychologist Steve Lee, who worked on the new study. That means parents should focus on discussing more immediate effects of stimulants with their child's doctor, such as sleep or appetite problems, he added. Kids with ADHD are known to be at higher risk of developing substance problems than those without the disorder. One analysis from 2003 suggested kids treated with stimulants were less likely to develop alcohol and drug problems than their peers with ADHD. Lee and his colleagues from the University of California, Los Angeles, wanted to see how that picture looked once more recent studies were taken into account. The researchers analyzed data related to substance use or abuse of each drug separately. For every category they looked at - alcohol, nicotine, marijuana, cocaine and other drugs - Ritalin and similar stimulants weren't tied to a clear increase or decrease in future use or abuse. That finding isn't the end of the story, the study team said. For example, it's not clear whether the effects of stimulants are different for boys and girls. And because kids in these studies were not randomly assigned to take stimulants or not, it's possible they varied in other ways that may have affected future drug and alcohol use, such as ADHD severity, the researchers write in JAMA Psychiatry. “What I say to parents when I'm talking to them about medication is, the medication is unlikely to have any adverse effects on substance use as far as we know right now,” said William Pelham, head of the Center for Children and Families at Florida International University in Miami, who wasn't involved in the new study. But, he said, “We don't have a lot of studies going into the full range of years when people (are most at risk for) substance abuse.” According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, parent reports suggest that close to one in 10 kids and teens in the U.S. has ever been diagnosed with ADHD, and two-thirds of those with a current diagnosis are treated with medication such as stimulants. Those drugs can come with short-term side effects, including appetite loss and stomach aches. Because of that, “psychosocial, parent-management types of strategies probably ought to be the first line of treatment,” rather than medication, Lee said. In general, stimulants haven't been shown to have long-term side effects in the years after kids stop taking them, Pelham said - but they also don't seem to have long-term benefits. He agreed with Lee that parents should be looking to non-drug ways to improve the outlook for children with ADHD, including working closely with teachers as kids grow up. And because those youth are at higher risk of drug and alcohol problems due to their ADHD, they should have access to programs to improve decision-making skills and peer relationships, Pelham said.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/30/adhd-medications-not-tied-to-drug-alcohol-abuse/
The homeless man whose face was nearly chewed off by another man in a gruesome attack in Miami last year is recovering well from his severe facial injuries and has expressed gratitude to those who supported him during his recovery process. In a newly added YouTube video from Jackson Health System in Miami, 66-year-old Ronald Poppo is seen sitting on a hospital bed strumming a few chords on a guitar.  He then pauses, holds up the guitar and jokes, “A good enough action shot?” Towards the end of the video, the infamous Miami cannibal attack victim issues a statement to his supporters. “Thanks for contributing and helping out,” Poppo said in the video.  “People in my predicament need to be helped out, and I’m sure there’s other people who also have the same type of predicaments.  I thank the outpouring of people in the community.  I will always be grateful for them.” On May 26, 2012, Poppo was viciously attacked by 31-year-old Rudy Eugene on the MacArthur Causeway in Miami, Fla. Initial reports suggested that Eugene was high on bath salts at the time of the attack, but later toxicology results only indicated the presences of marijuana in his system. Surveillance video from a nearby building shows Eugene pulling Poppo from the shade, stripping and pummeling him before appearing to hunch over and then lie on top of him. A witness described Eugene ripping at Poppo's face with his mouth and growling at a Miami police officer who ordered him to get off the homeless man. The officer then shot and killed Eugene. After the attack, Poppo was taken to Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, where he underwent months of facial reconstruction to rebuild his features.  Poppo lost both his eyes and his nose in the attack. The Associated Press contributed to this report.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/21/miami-face-chewing-victim-thanks-supporters-in-new-video/
Teens who have a classmate die of suicide are more likely to consider taking, or attempt to take, their own lives, according to a new study. The idea that suicide might be “contagious” has been around for centuries, senior author Dr. Ian Colman, who studies mental health at the University of Ottawa, said. Past studies supported the idea, but none had looked at such a large body of students, he said. “There were a lot of surprising things about this study, we were surprised that the effect lasted so long and just how strong it was,” Colman said. Colman and his colleagues used data from a long-running national survey of more than 8,000 Canadian kids aged 12 to 17 years old. Students were asked about suicides of schoolmates, friends and their own thoughts of suicide, and researchers checked in with the kids two years later. By the age of 17, one in four kids had a schoolmate who had committed suicide, and one in five knew the deceased personally, according to results published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. For the 12- and 13-year-old adolescents exposed to a schoolmate's suicide, 15 percent reported thinking seriously about killing themselves and seven percent actually made an attempt, compared to 3 percent and 2 percent of unexposed kids, respectively. The effect persisted even if the schoolmate had died more than a year earlier. Results were similar for 14- and 15-year-olds and 16- and 17-year-olds, but older kids who had not been exposed to suicide were more likely to have thought of or attempted it. “For 12- and 13-year olds, they were approximately five times more likely to report thinking about suicide,” Colman said. “That's a huge effect.” They found no difference between kids who personally knew the deceased and those who didn't. In the U.S., about 4,600 people aged 10 to 25 years old commit suicide, according to the Centers for Disease Control. NEW POLICIES? Based on the results, school “post-vention” programs should encompass the whole school, not just those closest to the deceased, and should perhaps revisit parts of the intervention months and years down the line, Colman said. It may make sense that kids who knew the deceased and those who didn't seemed to have no difference in risk, Frank Zenere, a school psychologist at the Miami-Dade County public school system, said. “Sometimes the closest friends are not the ones that are most likely to harm themselves because they're so up close and aware of the painful fallout with the family of the deceased, which can actually be a protective factor,” Zenere said. The younger kids tend to be most vulnerable and impressionable, he said. “There's a lot more drama in middle school grade levels, they tend to have much more of an emotional outpouring, early teens versus late teens,” he said. Though the current study indicates the effect persists for at least two years, Zenere believes it may go on even longer. Some school districts may rewrite policies and procedures in light of these results, but those at most, including his own, are probably already designed to take relevant factors into account. “It's really important for parents to talk to their kids about mental health and to help them get professional help if needed,” Colman said.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/21/schoolmates-suicide-victims-at-higher-risk/