Accident Phobia – Impairs the ability to Drive

Situational Specific Phobia :  Accident Phobia

Accident phobia has been studied most extensively in relation to accidents involving motor vehicles. It has been established that thirty-eight per cent of survivors of car crashes subsequently develop severe phobic fear and avoidance of car travel, which has had a significant effect on their normal life.

Symptoms of accident phobia

Although it is unusual for car journeys to be avoided completely, accident phobics will often only travel when strictly necessary. Also, the journey may only be undertaken at a particular time of day, for example, when traffic conditions are light. Accident phobics experience considerable anticipatory anxiety before the journey and are highly fearful while in the car. Some find it very difficult to be passengers and most constantly give the driver instructions.

It is not unusual for accident phobics to make considerable adjustments to their life to avoid car travel. This can include such extreme measures as moving house or even relinquishing a job and, in most cases, the person’s normal enjoyment of outings, hobbies, holidays and so on, is considerably restricted because of the effect on mobility. It is possible that similar levels of phobic fear and avoidance may occur in those who have been in accidents involving buses, coaches and trains.

The recently developed Accident Fear Questionnaire of American Psychiatry appears to reliably differentiate between the two conditions and indicates that phobic fear develops independently of injury, pain or depression caused by the accident. There is, however, some evidence that a person/ s psychological make-up might predispose them towards developing accident phobia.

Treatment of accident phobia

Treatment for accident phobia is in a process of continual development and refinement. Initial cognitive therapy is needed, aimed at helping the person to realize that he is a survivor, and that there is no reason to suppose that an accident that has happened once will be repeated. Therapy using the person’s imagination and the use of video-taped material may be useful. Eventually, the person is encouraged to embark upon exposure therapy by becoming a car passenger – something that most phobics find extremely difficult. The final stage, if the person is a driver, is for him to start driving again and a refresher instruction course may help in this respect.

Receptive Expressive Disorder

Receptive-expressive developmental language Disorder

In this disorder the understanding of language is below the level appropriate to the child’s mental age. In almost all cases, expressive language is also disturbed (a fact recognized in DSM-IV by the term receptive-expressive language disorder). The development of receptive language ability varies considerably among normal children. However, failure to respond to familiar names, in the absence of non-verbal cues, by the beginning of the second year of age, or failure to respond to simple instructions by the end of the second year, are significant signs suggesting receptive language disorder – provided that deafness, learning disability, and pervasive developmental disorder have been excluded. Associated social and behavioral problems are particularly frequent in this form of language disorder.

The prevalence depends on the criteria for diagnosis, but a frequency of up to 3% of school-age children has been suggested (American Psychiatric Association 1994). The prognosis is poor with around 75% continuing throughout childhood. The prognosis is worse when the language disorder is severe, or there is a co-morbid condition, such as conduct disorder. Treatment is through special education. The psychiatrist’s role is the same as in expressive language disorder.

Video Games Relieve Depression

Can Video Games Help Relieve the Symptoms of Depression?

According to research and multiple studies conducted across the western world, there is promising results shown in the treatment of depression with a video game interface which fights with underlying cognitive issues associated with depression. They just do not manage the symptoms only.

Different studies on Depression and Video Games

There were many studies conducted on the implications of video games on depression. The first study enrolled older adults diagnosed with late-life depression into a treatment trial where they were randomized to receive either a mobile, tablet-based treatment technology developed by Akili Interactive Labs called Project: EVO or an in-person therapy technique known as problem-solving therapy (PST).

Project: EVO was an app running on tablets or mobile phone and was designed to improve focus and attention at a basic neurological level. The people who were using the app from Project: EVO demonstrated specific cognitive benefits compared to the behavioral therapy, and saw similar improvements in mood and self-reported function.

Joaquin A. Anguera, from University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), who is a researcher in neurology and psychiatry, performed this study and intervention manufactured by Akili Interactive Labs, Boston was used.  The study is funded by National Institute of Mental Health.

As per another research study going on at the University of California, Davis – using video games and brain training applications can help treat depression. The study found that not only can video games potentially treat depression, but when participants are reminded to play games, they are more likely to play more often and increase time playing.

An App, a Video Game, and a Placebo for Depression

A larger trial was conducted with more than 600 participants having mild or moderate depression. These participants assessed the value of different video games in the treatment of depression. One group played Project: EVO, second used an app called iPST, while the third used placebo control who used an app called Health Tips, suggesting health suggestions.

For mild depression, all three groups’ experienced similar improvements, while people who had more than mild depression saw greater improvements with iPST and Project: EVO than with the placebo app.

Video game has nothing to do with mental health, but it can help fixing brain function in people who suffer from this particular flavor of depression.

Affirm Your Worth With Affirmations

How important it is to be self aware to make progress in your life? How important it is to know how much respect you give to yourself to start with? People, and I am saying almost 99% people across the world look at others to validate themselves in many aspects making them loose their own power and control.

Does Positive Affirmations have any Role

Affirmations are the act or an instance of affirming; the assertion that something exists or is true, a statement or proposition that is declared to be true. Using affirmation to raise the self worth has been considered as a topic of controversy among professionals. Some believe that they work and are recommended in treatment highly. While lot others pass them off and say they have no use. In the opinion of depression guide, the theraptists should at least tell the idea to clients.

What is an affirmation?

Professionals who recommend and use affirmations are using it to enhance the purpose of changing the way people think. Most of the people across the world are programmed with negative thinking – like “I can’t do ____, I am no good, I am not good looking, I’m not smart?”. The idea of an affirmation is to change the way we think over a period of time. Remember that it took however many years to leran this affirmations.
It is going to take substantial time to reprogram your mind to think positive things about yourself and then believe them.
The important thing is to find out what you think negative about yourself and then rewrite it so it is in the for of a positive statement instead of a negative one.

How to Fail with Grace and maintain Affirmation?

Failure is a part of life—at work, at school, and even in our relationships. In short, we screw up all the time. Fortunately, new research shows how we can learn from our mistakes. As it happens, preserving our self-worth helps our brains make sense of our blunders so we can do better the next time around. Affirming your values also helps your brain attune to the errors of your ways so you can learn from your mistakes.

Self Esteem Affirmations

  1. I love and accept myself unconditionally.
  2. I approve of myself and feel great about myself.
  3. I radiate love and respect and in return I get love and respect.
  4. I am a well loved and well respected person.
  5. I am a cultured and wise and yet, a humble person.

Receptive Expressive Language Disorder

Receptive-expressive development language disorder

In this disorder the understanding of language is below the level appropriate to the child’s mental age. In almost all cases, expressive language is also disturbed (a fact recognized in DSM-IV by the term receptive-expressive language disorder).

Characteristics of the Receptive-Expressive Language Disorder

The development of receptive language ability varies considerably among normal children. However, failure to respond to familiar names, in the absence of non-verbal cues, by the beginning of the second year of age, or failure to respond to simple instructions by the end of the second year, are significant signs suggesting receptive language disorder – provided that deafness, learning disability, and pervasive developmental disorder have been excluded. Associated social and behavioral problems are particularly frequent in this form of language disorder.

The prevalence depends on the criteria for diagnosis, but a frequency of up to 3% of school-age children has been suggested (American Psychiatric Association 1994a). The prognosis is poor with around 75% continuing throughout childhood. The prognosis is worse when the language disorder is severe, or there is a co-morbid condition, such as conduct disorder.

Treatment of this disorder

Treatment is through special education. The psychiatrist’s role is the same as in expressive language disorder

Video Games Relieve Depression

Video Games has the power to relieve depression

Researchers have found promising results for treating depression with a video game interface that targets underlying cognitive issues associated with depression rather than just managing the symptoms.

According to Dr. Patricia Areán, a UW Medicine researcher in psychiatry and behavioral sciences, the findings are both intriguing and promising.  The first study enrolled older adults diagnosed with late-life depression into a treatment trial where they were randomized to receive either a mobile, tablet-based treatment technology developed by Akili Interactive Labs called Project: EVO or an in-person therapy technique known as problem-solving therapy (PST).

Project:EVO

The Project: EVO runs on phones and tablets and is designed to improve focus and attention at a basic neurological level. The results showed that the group using Project: EVO demonstrated specific cognitive benefits (such as attention) compared to the behavioral therapy, and saw similar improvements in mood and self-reported function. The studies were funded by the National Institute of Mental Health.

Another research on Video Games effects on Depression

Researchers at the University of California Davis are using video games and brain training applications to treat depression. The study found that not only can video games potentially treat depression, but when participants are reminded to play games, they are more likely to play more often and increase time playing, which may help patients gain further benefit from the treatment, though the researchers did not measure that.

The study used six, three-minute specifically designed video games played by 160 student participants with an average age of 21. The study showed in most cases playing a game helped participants feel they had some control over their depression. The games were an adaptation of neurophysiological training tasks shown to improve cognitive control in people with depression.

The messages used to remind participants to play the video games targeted depression as either internal from a chemical imbalance or hereditary, or external from environmental and lifestyle factors. The reminder messages had differences in approach but all concluded with inspirational notes to encourage participants to play the game.

The Best and the Beauty of Naturopathy

Naturopathy is a combination of different methods of natural healing that are extremely wide-ranging, and a practitioner may become a specialist in one particular area. Although naturopathy can be used to treat the symptoms of an illness it is, fundamentally, a way of life and a means of disease prevention. The management of stress and anxiety is a particular area that is addressed by naturopathy and adopting a healthy, naturopathic lifestyle benefits everybody and can be helpful to those suffering from phobias.

Naturopathy’s principle therapeutic elements

The examination of nutrition and diet including the use of vitamin and mineral supplements. Detoxification – the use of short periods of fasting or controlled diets and supplements to aid the natural processes by which the body rids itself of toxic substances.

Ways and means to control and reduce stress and anxiety including recognising and eliminating the cause whenever possible, relaxation techniques, modification of diet and the use of supplements, particularly to support the adrenal gland.

  1. Hydrotherapy – the use of water to promote healing.
  2. Herbal medicine Homeopathy
  3. Physical therapies such as massage, chiropractic and osteopathy

Counseling and lifestyle modification, which can be of particular value in relieving psychological, behavioral and emotional problems as well as physical ailments. Treatment may include hypnotherapy, relaxation ,techniques, visualization (image) therapy, color, music or dance therapy in addition to other naturopathic methods.

The use of acupuncture and Oriental therapies such as shiatsu, yoga and T’ai Chi Ch’uan

Exercise – the importance of exercise in the promotion of good health, including psychological and emotional wellbeing, and in the treatment of ailments is recognized by naturopaths and forms a part of most therapeutic programs.

A naturopath is interested in the person as a whole and not just in a particular condition or set of symptoms that may be troubling the patient. Hence consulting a naturopath gives a person the chance to discuss every aspect of life with someone who is concerned to offer help.

Differences between behavior therapy and cognitive therapy

The differences between the two approaches can perhaps be best understood by considering an illustration. Behavioral therapy may be able to help an agoraphobic to get used to the feared situation by repeated exposure. However, it is also possible that the agoraphobic could be employing an undisclosed safety or coping strategy on which he is secretly relying. He might in fact have his belief in the effectiveness of this reinforced by exposure alone, that is believing that he can confront the agoraphobic situation better because his safety strategy is working so well.

Also, if panic control measures have been strongly taught as a part of behavioral therapy the patient may subsequently be able to enter the agoraphobic situation only because he now believes that he can avoid catastrophe by employing them. It is then likely that he will not have come to realize that panic symptoms are harmless as this belief is not challenged by control alone. His agoraphobia has been controlled rather than changed and panic control has become a safety or coping strategy in its own right.

Cognitive Therapy facts

In cognitive therapy, panic control would perhaps be viewed as one of several useful measures aimed at changing an agoraphobic’s belief in the harmfulness of panic symptoms. In practice, cognitive therapy experiments, such as those described above, have to incorporate exposure, which is a key element of behavioral therapy.

There is, in fact, a considerable degree of overlap between the two approaches. The behavioral approach to agoraphobia, based on exposure therapy, has been proved to be effective in most cases and has also been shown to bring about cognitive changes. Many experts believe that the effectiveness of purely cognitive treatments has not been established or is inferior to that of behavioral therapy. The same view also tends to be taken with regard to combined therapies which have been tried. However, both behavioral and cognitive approaches have been proved valuable in the treatment of panic disorder.

The fact that a high percentage of agoraphobics are helped by behavioral exposure therapy is especially encouraging when one considers that it is generally only the most severely affected patients who seek treatment. As mentioned above, it is thought that many agoraphobics (no doubt including those who see themselves as being less seriously affected) remain ‘hidden’ within the community and never seek professional help. Hence part of the function of a book such as this should be to stress the importance and effectiveness of treatment compared with suffering the distress of agoraphobia.

Panic attacks and disorders

Panic attacks and disorders – Difference and Complex relationship

Panic (or anxiety) attack

A panic attack involves the sudden appearance of four or more of the following mental and physical symptoms which are the typical symptoms of extreme anxiety. These are:

  1. Rapid rate of heartbeat or palpitations.
  2. Breathlessness or a feeling of being smothered.
  3. Tightness or pain in the chest.
  4. Tremor, trembling, shaking.
  5. Feeling hot or cold or alternating between the two.
  6. Shivering or sweating; pallor.
  7. Choking feeling in the throat.
  8. Dizziness, feelings of faintness or light-headedness.
  9. Nausea or gastro-intestinal symptoms.
  10. Tingling in the extremities of the limbs or feelings of numbness.
  11. Fear that loss of physical control (for example of bladder and bowels) is imminent.
  12. Fear that mental collapse and loss of control or , madness’ are imminent.
  13. Feelings of detachment and unreality and fear that one may be dying.

The symptoms rapidly reach a peak of intensity within ten minutes of first appearing and then disappear as quickly as they arose. Although a panic attack can be extremely distressing, it is not physically harmful although the sufferer frequently believes that it is. Panic attacks are extremely common with about a third of people experiencing one in any given year.

Panic (or anxiety) disorder

Panic disorder is characterized by the occurrence of panic attacks which, at least in the first instance, arise unexpectedly and are not attached to a particular situation or stimulus. Anticipatory anxiety about the occurrence of further spontaneous attacks is a major part of the disorder. In many, but not all, cases the person avoids the place or situation where a panic attack occurred and this aspect has a strong correlation with agoraphobia.

The person also commonly believes that the panic attack is symptomatic of a serious physical disorder, such as a brain tumor or heart condition, and may report to a doctor or hospital on this basis. A diagnosis of panic disorder is unlikely to be made in these circumstances although it may emerge at a later date. The disorder itself is uncommon, affecting fewer than one in a hundred people in any given six-month period.

Specific Developmental expressive Language Disorder

Specific Developmental expressive Language Disorder

In this disorder, the ability to use expressive spoken language is markedly below the level appropriate for the child’s mental age. Language comprehension is within normal limits but there may be abnormalities in articulation. Language development varies considerably among normal children, but the absence of single words by 2 years of age, and of two-word phrases by 3 years of age signifies abnormality. Signs at later ages include restricted vocabulary, difficulties in selecting appropriate words, and immature grammatical usage. Nonverbal communication, if impaired, is not affected as severely as spoken language, and the child makes efforts to communicate. Disorders of behavior are often present.

Cluttering – some children speak rapidly and with an erratic rhythm such that the grouping of words does not reflect the grammatical structure of their speech. This abnormality, which is known as cluttering, is classified as an associated feature of expressive language disorder in DSM-IV but in ICD-I0 it is classified (with stammering) among other behavioral disorders of childhood.

Prevalence of expressive language disorder depends on the method of assessment; a rate of 3-5% of children has been proposed (American Psychiatric Association 1994a).

Prognosis of the disorder

It is reported that about half of the children meeting DSM-IV criteria develop normal speech by adult life, while the rest have long lasting difficulties (American Psychiatric Association

1994a). Prognosis is worse when the language disorder is severe, or there is a co-morbid condition, such as conduct disorder.

Treatment of Expressive Language Disorder

Treatment is mainly through special education.  Psychiatrists are likely to be involved when there is a co-morbid disorder, and may need to advise the parents about the child’s rights for special education.