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|  AIDS in the Developing World |
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| The vast majority of persons with HIV and AIDS do not live in the United States—about only one in twenty-two persons did in 1996. They live mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Many also live in Latin America, the Caribbean, the Pacific region, the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and Canada. While the great majority of persons with HIV/AIDS live in the developing world, only about 1 percent of the world’s economic resources that go to combat AIDS and support HIV prevention programs are spent there. By 1996, 5.8 million people, including 1.3 million children, died of AIDS in the world. By the end of 1997, the United Nations estimated that only one in ten of the 30.6 million people infected with HIV knew that they were infected. |
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| What is Addiction? |
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| People who are addicted often say: "I'm not addicted; I only drink on weekends." Others say: "I can't be an addict; I only smoke marijuana, and you can't get addicted to marijuana." Still others claim: "I'm not an addict; I don't use nearly as much as she does!" Many people mistakenly believe that addiction relates primarily to how frequently the drug is being used, what type of drug is being used, the amount of drug being consumed, or how long a drug has been used. Although these are important factors, they do not define addiction.
Rather, addiction can be described as a progressive, chronic, primary disease that is characterized by compulsion, loss of control, continued drug use despite adverse consequences, and distortions in normal thinking, such as denial. To understand addiction, it is important to explore each of these issues. |
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| Symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease |
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| Alzheimer's disease is a neurological condition that impairs the brain's functioning. Symptoms of the illness represent deficits in many areas of how a person remembers and thinks. For instance, problems with memory may be manifested as forgetting names, dates, places, whether a bill has been paid, or something said over and over. Intellectual abilities are lost eventually. Reasoning with the affected person is no longer a successful way to understand and deal with his or her problems. Judgment about everyday situations is drastically diminished. Capacity for verbal expression gradually declines and the person with AD cannot comprehend what others say to him. As the disease progresses, he may gradually lose the ability to speak. Psychiatric symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations can occur. The person can become anxious, restless, agitated, and may even appear to be depressed. His personality will change. In fact, he may not seem to be the same person. |
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| Symptoms of Anxiety Disorders |
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| The anxiety disorders (as well as depression) can best be understood in terms of the functioning of the total organism rather than as a singleetiology disease, such as herpes or measles. The specific groups of symptoms associated with anxiety, for example, correspond to the functions of specific primal systems and subsystems (cognitive, affective, behavioral, and physiological), which are integrated into the master system--namely, the psychobiological or organismic totality. These component systems are not isolated from each other, and their operations are generally coordinated and integrated by the master system. The master system is designed to carry out certain objectives (such as self-preservation, feeding, or breeding), and the specific systems operate together to implement that "master plan." These objectives are labeled "adaptational" in that they are derived from evolutionary principles relevant to survival of a particular lineage in a given environment. |
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| Attention Deficit Disorder: Clinical Issues |
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| There have been a wide variety of terms used to describe the children we now refer to as suffering from attention deficit disorder (ADD). The original minimal brain dysfunction, MBD, concept of Clements and Peters ( 1962) has evolved to the behavioral description ADDH (American Psychiatric Association's DSM-III ( 1980) and revised to ADHD in DSM-III-R from 1987. A person suffering from ADD often fails to finish things started, often does not seem to listen, is easily distracted, has difficulty concentrating on tasks requiring sustained attention, has problems with sticking to an activity, often acts before thinking, has difficulty awaiting turn, shifts excessively from one activity to another, has difficulty organizing work; and, may be hyperactive. These behavioral categories are to some extent overlapping and the symptoms vary from person to person. |
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| Cocaine Addiction |
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| Cocaine now went underground, much as alcohol did (Ray, 1978 ; Spotts and Shontz, 1980). Unlike alcohol use, however, cocaine use was not widespread and appeared to be limited to those defined as bohemians, such as musicians and artists, or to affluent members of certain minorities (Sabbag, 1976). Those who used the drug were linked by the media with groups seen as threatening the social fabric, especially African Americans and foreigners (Young, 1987). The drug remained underground for decades. By the 1930s amphetamines were seen as a cheaper and longer-acting substitute. By the 1950s the federal government was claiming success in the war on recreational drugs, at least with regard to cocaine (Das, 1993 ; Musto, 1992). Even its surgical use was curtailed during the 1920s as a result of the development and introduction of newer, longer-lasting anesthetics (Spotts and Shontz, 1980). |
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| Deaf Children Development |
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| Theoretical and empirical discussions of deaf children's development, like developmental psychology and cognitive psychology at-large, frequently focus on the nature of observed or hypothesized relationships between pairs of closely related domains. Within developmental psychology, for example, such comparisons include the relationships of language and cognition (e.g., Bates, 1979; Bates, Benigni, Bretherton, Camaioni, & Volterra, 1977; Macnamara, 1977), cognition and experience ( Bronowski & Bellugi, 1970; Piaget, 1963), and language and experience ( Halliday, 1975; Nelson, 1973). Within the area of deaf children's development, there have been specific, empirical evaluations of the relationships between early social behavior and language development (e.g., Lederberg, 1991; MacKay-Soroka, Trehub, & Thorpe, 1987), social and cognitive development ( Greenberg & Kusche, 1987), early language and prelinguistic communication (Caselli, 1990; Meier & Newport, 1990; Petitto, 1988), and social and personality development ( Greenberg & Kusché, 1987; Schlesinger & Meadow, 1972). In the contexts of both these broader and more specific modes of investigation, our understanding of deaf children's development has been furthered by comparisons among different groups of deaf children (varying, for example, in the hearing status of their parents or their modes of communication) and by comparisons between groups of deaf and hearing children. |
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| Drug Addiction |
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| Addiction is not merely the chronic use of a drug. Addiction involves the compulsion to use drugs, a loss of control over the time and amount of drug use, and continued drug use despite negative consequences. These adverse consequences may include impairment in physical, cognitive, psychological, emotional, social, and spiritual health. From a medical perspective, addiction is characterized as a chronic, progressive, relapsing, and potentially fatal disease. The development and progression of addictive disease can be influenced by a number of factors, such as the type and strength of the drug, the route of administration, various individual risk factors, and assorted environmental influences. Understanding the basic principles of drug use is an important step in understanding addiction. |
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| Prevention of Eating Disorders |
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| Is primary prevention of eating disorders in general, and of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa in particular, a nice, but unrealistic wish? The drive to diminish human suffering and prevent a fatal outcome of eating disorders is laudable. However, over time, professional opinions have oscillated between unrealistic optimism and fatalism.
Many children, and girls in particular, believe that thinness is important to attractiveness, academic and social success, and a happy life in general. Even small children believe that fat is undesirable (Smolak & Levine, 1996). For instance, girls prefer thin rather than fat dolls, and 50% of girls aged 7—13 years want to lose weight despite the fact that only 4% actually are overweight (Davis & Furnham, 1986). Moreover, among girls aged 11—16, years, 15—20% may display weight and shape preoccupation as well as strict dieting (Gresko & Rosenvinge, 1998). Thinness is an important component of how attractive and desirable a woman is perceived to be (Smith et al., 1990) and physical attractiveness is more strongly associated with opposite-sex popularity for women than for men (Feingold, 1991). Excessive dieting disturbs school performance and interpersonal relations, affects general mental and physical health, and may increase the risk for developing eating disorders (Patton, 1999). Moreover, body dissatisfaction and dieting as well as diagnosable eating disorders seem to occur among still younger age groups (Bryant-Waugh & Lask, 1995). |
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| Environment and Health |
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| ...Our respiratory organs, our vision, and our hearing are damaged because of the high amounts of contaminants in the air, water, and soil. A substantial number of people have conditions such as asthma, other respiratory problems or difficulties with additional organs of the body. The contaminants in the air have not only affected humans, but animals as well. The atmosphere contains a lot of dust, which travels from the surface of the Earth and, partially, from space, as strong winds pick up water particles from the seas and oceans. The small pieces of salt contained in the water are brought into the air. As a result of volcano eruptions, forest fires, industrial wastes, etc; air becomes polluted with products not completely burned. There are some basic sources of pollution of the atmosphere: industries, transportation devices, and others. |
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| Health Care Policy in the United States |
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| How does one describe health care and the health care delivery system in the United States today? As recently as the early 1990s, a typical conclusion about the system was that it has been successful in achieving the most technologically advanced medical care system in the world and that most of this technology is available to affluent and middle-class consumers of health care services (Botehlo, 1991; Kronenfeld, 1993; Todd et al., 1990). Moreover, the United States has become the premier nation among all nations in the provision of high-quality, comprehensive medical education (Todd et al., 1990). Physicians come from all over the world to receive the most advanced training and learn how to use the newest medical equipment. (Kronenfeld, 1993).
Based on this glowing description of a larger, more important, and more comprehensive health care system, especially as regards technologically-oriented care, many Americans in general as well as health care experts have concluded that health care has been one of the great American success stories. People are healthier than in the past and many people receive care whenever they need it. Quality must be high and costs reasonable, or how could health care have grown into a major industry? |
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| Health Education via Media |
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| It is very important to acknowledge that young people view many hours of television daily. We need to realize the importance of providing television quality multimedia to schools that not only is entertaining but are curriculum based. For today's children, who have been raised on television, traditional textbooks, chalkboards, and lectures can be boring. Interactive multimedia can motivate a student to respond and learn.
Through multimedia programming, students, regardless of learning styles, can access accurate information that is created in the style of the television shows they are accustomed to watching. This means the visuals are engaging and catch the attention of the students, accommodate short attention spans, and can be accessed repeatedly by the students in order to master the material before moving on. The ability to access visually compelling materials that are personally involving, enhances the learning process. |
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| Medicine and the Renaissance |
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| In Renaissance as in medieval Europe, naturalistic medicine, whether practised by physicians, surgeons, or village herbalists, took its place in a loosely integrated system of healing that also included religious and magical approaches. This complex world of health care was embodied in a remarkable variety of sites of practice and types of practitioner, especially in the larger cities. All over Europe, however, the primary place where the sick were treated was the home, and the principal nurses and healers, as numerous illustrations and medical texts testify, were the women of the household--mothers, daughters, wives, and servants. Because even professional medicine blurred the lines between care and cure, the treatment given by these women resembled in many ways that prescribed by physicians: they opened and closed windows, burned aromatic substances, provided basic hygiene, prepared what they considered appropriate food and drink, and administered medicinal preparations that used many of the ingredients found on pharmacists' shelves. |
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| Language Disorders in Children |
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| The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) has proposed defining language disorder as an impairment in "comprehension and/or use of a spoken, written, and/or other symbol system. The disorder may involve (1) the form of language (phonologic, morphologic, and syntactic systems), (2) the content of language (semantic system), and/or (3) the function of language in communication (pragmatic system), in any combination" (1993, p. 40).
This definition is useful in that it is quite broad, covering not only spoken but also written language. However, it does not help the clinician decide just what constitutes the "impairment" in acquisition. Some definitions, such as Fey's ( 1986), emphasize the notion of a standard against which the child's performance is measured. According to Fey, a language disorder is "a significant deficit in the child's level of development of the form, content, or use of language" (p. 31). Still, the clinician needs to determine what a significant deficit is and relative to what. |
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| Cannabis Use and Misuse |
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| Between 200 and 300 million people worldwide report smoking marijuana (Woody & MacFadden, 1995). Cannabis remains the most widely consumed illicit drug in Canada (Russell, Newman, & Bland, 1994), as well as the United States. In 1999, approximately one-third of U.S. adults (76 million) reported smoking marijuana at least once. About 9% of the U.S. population reported smoking marijuana in the previous year; 5% had used in the previous month (SAMHSA, 2000). This 1999 survey did not assess weekly users, but in 1996, approximately 3% of Americans had used the drug on more than 51 days in the previous year (DHHS, 1998). More men report using the drug than women. Approximately 6.5% of the females and 10.5% of the males age 12 and over reported smoking marijuana in the previous year (Greenfield & O'Leary, 1999). |
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| Prevention of Substance Abuse |
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| Substance abuse is one of the most challenging problems facing society in the late 1990s. The prevalence of substance use and abuse is staggering. Alcohol consumption is commonplace, with approximately 140 million Americans using alcohol in 1995 ( Office of Applied Studies, 1995). An additional 13 million persons used illicit drugs in at least 1 month during 1994 ( U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1995). The consequences of alcohol and drug abuse are equally disconcerting, as evidenced by the link between substance abuse and acute and chronic health problems, car-related injuries and deaths, poor work performance and attendance, psychosocial maladjustment, and involvement in criminal activity. Considerable financial expenditures also result from substance use and abuse, involving the health care system, law enforcement, the criminal justice system, and lost economic efficiency. Substance use typically emerges in adolescence. For a significant proportion of individuals, problems with drugs and alcohol will continue through adulthood. As with many social ills, treatment of affected individuals is expensive and has a limited rate of success. Accordingly, it is almost universally acknowledged that the most effective approach to decreasing substance abuse is prevention. Curtailing the full clinical expression of substance use disorders preserves resources currently allocated to treatment and other forms of intervention (e.g., law enforcement) and mitigates the harmful impact of substance abuse on individuals, families, communities, and society. |
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| Organ and Tissue Transplantation and Donation |
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| Where do organs come from? What kind of organs and tissues are used? What sorts of people are they coming from? Are people the only sources of organs and tissues used in transplantation? Fifty years ago these questions would be science fiction, not science. Advances in surgery, immunology, and pharmacology have made possible the transplantation of hearts, livers, kidneys, lungs, pancreases, bone marrow, skin, and corneas. Yet, along with these technological advances, society has had to explore new and often controversial sources to alleviate a scarcity of useable organs and tissues. |
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| Hunger and Malnutrition |
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| Pictures of emaciated children too weak to move evoke in most people a sense of deep social injustice. Indeed, these pictures are presented in order to incite action. Anyone who has dealt with severely malnourished children confronts with indignation society's failure to feed its children properly. But these images should evoke other questions for us as well. What are the chances for complete cognitive and socio-emotional recovery for these children? Is the supply of food alone sufficient for their recovery? What is the cause of the malnutrition? We assume that malnutrition is caused by a shortage of food. In many cases, this is the explanation, but we also see numerous examples of malnutrition affecting only one child in a family, or one family in a community of otherwise relatively well-nourished children (e.g., Dixon, LeVine, & Brazelton, 1982). Malnutrition is seen in relatively rich countries such as the United States ( Black & Dubowitz, 1991). We should therefore ask what other factors (i.e., psychological influences) may result in one child's becoming malnourished and another not. |
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