Clinical News
Below are news articles about clinical matters related to child and youth mental health. For stories about systems, shortages, funding and other non-clinical issues, please go here.
Bullying among children declining: study
Thursday, March 4, 2010The percentage of American children being bullied by peers has dropped sharply, likely because of the success of anti-bullying campaigns, according to a U.S. study. The study, funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, found that the percentage of children who reported being physically bullied over the past year had declined from nearly 22 per cent in 2003 to under 15 per cent in 2008. The percentage reporting they'd been assaulted by other youths, including their siblings, dropped from 45 per...
Full ArticleRisk of Mental Illness Higher If Both Parents Mentally Ill
Tuesday, March 2, 2010TUESDAY, March 2 (HealthDay News) -- People whose parents are both diagnosed with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder are at much higher risk of developing these and other psychiatric disorders, according to a study in the March issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry. Irving I. Gottesman, Ph.D., from the University of Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis, and colleagues analyzed population-based data from 2.7 million Danish individuals to examine the risk of schizophrenia, bipolar disorde...
Full ArticleStress hormone can lead to obesity in adolescent girls
Wednesday, February 24, 2010Scientists have uncovered a link between higher levels of a stress hormone and obesity in adolescent girls, but not boys. Even though boys and girls both release the hormone during stress, the findings show that girls are most likely to become obese from higher levels of cortisol. Cortisol, a hormone released by the adrenal gland is known to contribute to obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease. It can also destroy immunity. Though researchers have known that cortisol contri...
Full ArticleWhy childhood depression is on the rise and what can parents do about it
Wednesday, February 17, 2010DAYTON, Ohio—Childhood depression seems like a contradictory phrase. Isn’t childhood and adolescence generally a carefree time without significant responsibilities and pressure? How can kids be depressed when it seems like they have never had it better? Children are being raised in environments that generally offer them more of everything. Compared to 50 to 100 years ago, children have access to better educational opportunities, health care and material benefits. Key indicators of c...
Full Article"Love" hormone may help autism symptoms: Study
Tuesday, February 16, 2010A hormone thought to encourage bonding between mothers and their babies may foster social behaviour in some adults with autism, French researchers said on Monday. They found patients who inhaled the hormone oxytocin paid more attention to expressions when looking at pictures of faces and were more likely to understand social cues in a game simulation, the researchers said in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Angela Sirigu of the Center of Cognitive Neuroscience i...
Full ArticleGay teenagers more likely to think about suicide: Study
Friday, February 12, 2010Gay, lesbian and bisexual teenagers are twice as likely to think about killing themselves or to attempt suicide as their heterosexual peers, Montreal researchers have found. But do not blame the sex. Blame society. When it comes to poor mental health, self-identity is crucial, a study of 1,900 people, age 14 to 18, in 14 Montreal-area high schools concluded. Published this week in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, the study is considered among the...
Full ArticleNew Diagnostic Guidelines for Mental Illnesses Proposed
Wednesday, February 10, 2010For the first time in more than a decade, the American Psychiatric Association has announced proposed changes to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), long considered the "Bible" of psychiatry. Unlike its predecessor, DSM-4, the new DSM-5 would not formally recognize sex and Internet addictions; would create a new category for "risk" disorders for people possibly heading towards developing full psychosis or dementia; and would create a new disorder, "temper dysregul...
Full ArticlePsychiatrists propose changes in how doctors diagnose and name mental disorders
Tuesday, February 9, 2010Don’t say "mental retardation" - the new term is "intellectual disability." No more diagnoses of Asperger’s syndrome - call it a mild version of autism instead. And while "behavioural addictions" will be new to doctors’ dictionaries, "Internet addiction" didn’t make the cut.The American Psychiatric Association is proposing major changes Wednesday to its diagnostic bible, the manual that doctors, insurers and scientists use in deciding what’s officially a mental diso...
Full ArticleThe allure of snake oil for parents of autistic children
Tuesday, February 9, 2010Jeanette Holden remembers her parents struggling to comprehend why her younger brother had autism. Family vacations could be a desperate search for someone, anyone, who could give them some answers, and maybe cure the boy. There's even a vague memory of taking Jim, now 57, somewhere in Europe they'd been told had curative waters, in hopes of miraculously washing the autism away. "Parents are so vulnerable," says Holden, today a geneticist at Queen's University specializing in autism. "To fin...
Full ArticleRisk of having child with autism rises sharply with mother's age: study
Monday, February 8, 2010Being an older mother significantly increases the risk of having a child with autism, but being an older father only increases the risk when the mother is under the age of 30, U.S. researchers said Monday. They found that a 40-year-old woman's risk of having a child later diagnosed with autism was 50% greater than that of a woman between 25 and 29. But being an older father -- 40 or older -- only contributes significantly to autism risk when the mother is under 30. "The older the mother, ...
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