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Wednesday, April 3, 2013
12 Natural Treatment Tips for Insomnia, Sleep Apnea, and other Sleep Disorders!
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12 Natural Treatment Tips for Insomnia, Sleep Apnea, and other Sleep Disorders!
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Restless Legs Syndrome or Growing Pains?
Restless legs syndrome is a common sleep disorder affecting about 1 in 10 adults. Characterized by an uncomfortable, and sometimes painful, itching or prickling in the legs and an uncontrollable desire to move the legs, restless legs syndrome is one of the most common causes of insomnia.
It is normally seen as a problem once you reach the age of about fifty and tends to get worse as you get older. It’s also the ‘poor relation’ of sleeping disorders and unlike insomnia, Sleep Apnea or narcolepsy, all of which are studied in medical school and reasonably well understood by doctors, restless legs syndrome is given relatively scant attention. One study even goes so far as to suggest that in as many as 3 out of 4 cases the condition goes undiagnosed, even when the patient presents with all the symptoms of the disorder.
This lack of focus on the problem, and general acceptance of it being a problem of the middle aged and elderly, perhaps hides the real extent of the problem and, in particular, masks the fact that restless legs syndrome may well play a major part in the lives of our children.
For many years now children have been complaining of symptoms at night which we have brushed off as simply growing pains. In addition, our children often appear unable to sit still for more than a couple of minutes and we simply put this down to normal childhood hyperactivity. The truth, however, is that a substantial number of our children are in fact suffering from restless legs syndrome.
The cause of restless legs syndrome remains something of a mystery although a good picture of the disorder is now beginning to appear and two elements of this picture should act as a wake up call to the medical profession.
The first element in the picture is that of a genetic basis for restless legs syndrome. It is now accepted that this condition runs in families with one study showing that as many of half of all cases show a family history. This is re-enforced by recent chromosome studies identifying a specific gene that is believed to play an important part in susceptibility to restless legs syndrome. Perhaps most significant of all however is a report published by the Mayo Clinic at the end of last year which showed that in a study of more than 500 children nearly three quarters of those with restless legs syndrome had a family history of the disorder.
The second element in the picture is that of an iron deficiency in sufferers. A number of studies by respected institutions, such as John Hopkins University, have shown that low levels of iron are common in cases of restless legs syndrome. It comes as no surprise therefore that more than eighty percent of the children in the Mayo Clinic study with restless legs syndrome also showed low iron levels.
So just what does all of this mean? Well, it’s simple. If your child is having trouble sleeping and complaining of discomfort at night, particularly in the legs, perhaps there is a little more to it that just growing pains. Similarly, if your child is constantly running around or jumping up and down then perhaps discomfort in the legs rather than hyperactivity is the cause.
Growing pains are normal in children, as are periods of excessive activity, and the odd night here and there is certainly nothing to worry about. But, if your child’s growing pains appear night after night then there’s a good possibility that these aren’t growing pains at all, but are the symptoms of restless legs syndrome.
Copyright 2005 Donald Saunders – http://help-me-to-sleep.com
NIMH to Fund for Research into Neurofeedback Training for ADHD
A recent press release from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) that surprised me. NIMH is providing grants for two research projects on what they term novel and innovative approaches to treating children who have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and one of these studies will be focused on Neurofeedback training.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is a mental disorder linked with attention problems, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. It is a genetic condition that affects around 5 percent of U.S. children, although recent studies have reported that as many as just under nine percent of children are affected. Current diagnostic criteria include the presence of impairing symptoms before the age of seven, although children may not actually be diagnosed until later, most commonly in the third grade. While the symptoms of hyperactivity generally decrease with age as the brain matures, other symptoms tend to persist, and it is not uncommon for ADHD-associated impairments to continue through the teenage years to adulthood.
L.Eugene Arnold, M.D., and Nicholas Lofthouse, Ph.D., of The Ohio State University, will lead a study on the use of Neurofeedback, which is also known as EEG biofeedback. Neurofeedback training is an alternative therapy sometimes used to treat ADHD, and other conditions. We offered Neurofeedback training to our patients for a number of years at our office, and were impressed with how effective it could be with children as young as six or seven years old. The biggest drawback that we saw with EEG biofeedback training was that it took a number of training sessions to make a significant and lasting difference, and that these sessions could be expensive to the family.
The way that neurofeedback training works is that the subject is given information about how his or her brain is working at the moment, and the subject uses that information to learn to change and control his own brain waves. The information is often provided in the form of a video game, so that the training is more interesting. The player becomes successful at playing the game by changing his brainwave frequencies to be more optimal for his particular condition. A person with ADHD will be trained to produce more brain waves in the higher frequencies that are associated with focus, and to produce less of the slow brain waves associated with day-dreaming, or even sleep. We have seen the technology successfully used for ADHD, Sleep Disorders, alcoholism, and anxiety disorders. We have also used the technology with athletes for peak performance training and greater situational awareness.
Studies by Lubar and others have reported the potential value of this treatment, but the medical community, often backed by pharmaceutical dollars, never really bought into it. The medical community typically replied with the demand for double-blind studies, as one would do with pills. But there are many things that do not need to be studied with double-blind studies.
Take, for example, a study on the effectiveness of weight lifting to increase strength. Would such a study be done with a double-blind protocol? No, of course not. You cannot trick a person into thinking they are lifting weights hard when they are not. Another example would be the relationship between reading and learning. If one were to study the question of whether or not reading can increase learning, the researcher would not be able to look at the effectiveness of reading by use of a double-blind study design. There are no placebos for books, and the subject would know whether he was reading or not. And EEG biofeedback training is similar. Its effectiveness does not need to be studied through a double-blind protocol, as the control group will quickly know that they are being tricked. The control group becomes unnecessary to the researcher, and unmotivated to participate, very quickly. The pharmaceutical companies know this, and the medical community knows this, but this is the argument that they have used to down-play the potential contribution that EEG Biofeedback training could make in the treatment of ADHD.
It is either fortunate, or unfortunate, but this will be the research design for the Ohio State study.
In their pilot study, Dr. Arnold and Dr. Lofthouse will randomly assign 36 boys and girls ages six to twelve to receive either EEG neurofeedback in the context of computer games or a placebo EEG treatment. The researchers say that during the placebo treatments the participant will experience pre-programmed game effects that are not affected by his or her brain wave activity, but the reality of it is that it will take about three sessions before everyone in the placebo group knows that they are being tricked. People learn quickly when they are controlling what is taking place on the computer, and when they are not, so the control group part of the study will be a waste of time very soon into the project.
Further, if the study were to use a CPT test, such as the TOVA, to measure changes in performance, there would be no need for a placebo group as these tests have no placebo effect. These tests are not impacted at all by placebos. People either perform better on the tasks or they do not.
But the good news is that by using the double-blind study design, although unnecessary, the study will potentially be published in medical journals where the results will have to be considered by the medical community.
Subjects in the treatment group also will be randomly assigned to receive their treatment either twice or three times a week to see the effects of treatment frequency. All participants will complete forty treatments total. Parent and teacher rating scales will be used as the measure of improved performance, which is too bad as they are highly subjective.
We certainly wish L.Eugene Arnold, M.D., and Nicholas Lofthouse, Ph.D., of The Ohio State University all the best of success in this project, and believe that they will contribute a great deal of information to the medical community on the effectiveness of EEG Biofeedback training.
If the reader would like to learn more about the effectiveness of Neurofeedback in treating ADHD, consider the study entitled, A Comparison of EEG Biofeedback and Psychostimulants in Treating Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorders, by Thomas P. Rossiter, and Theodore J. La Vaque. It is published in the Journal of Neurotherapy, Summer 1995. Also visit these two websites: the Brian Othmer Foundation at http://brianothmerfoundation.org/scientificarticlehome.html and the EEG Spectrum website at http://eegspectrum.com/Articles/ScientificArticles/ for a more research articles. Finally, Google the keywords: Joel Lubar (he is at the University of Tennessee), Neurofeedback ADHD, or EEG Biofeedback ADHD, for other articles.
You will find accurate and clear information on parenting a child or teenagers with ADHD at the ADD ADHD Information Library - http://newideas.net with Clinical Editor Dr. Douglas Cowan. Find over 350 research articles, parenting tips, and helpful tools for parents and teachers. Learn more about ADHD at the Centers for Disease Control site.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is a mental disorder linked with attention problems, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. It is a genetic condition that affects around 5 percent of U.S. children, although recent studies have reported that as many as just under nine percent of children are affected. Current diagnostic criteria include the presence of impairing symptoms before the age of seven, although children may not actually be diagnosed until later, most commonly in the third grade. While the symptoms of hyperactivity generally decrease with age as the brain matures, other symptoms tend to persist, and it is not uncommon for ADHD-associated impairments to continue through the teenage years to adulthood.
L.Eugene Arnold, M.D., and Nicholas Lofthouse, Ph.D., of The Ohio State University, will lead a study on the use of Neurofeedback, which is also known as EEG biofeedback. Neurofeedback training is an alternative therapy sometimes used to treat ADHD, and other conditions. We offered Neurofeedback training to our patients for a number of years at our office, and were impressed with how effective it could be with children as young as six or seven years old. The biggest drawback that we saw with EEG biofeedback training was that it took a number of training sessions to make a significant and lasting difference, and that these sessions could be expensive to the family.
The way that neurofeedback training works is that the subject is given information about how his or her brain is working at the moment, and the subject uses that information to learn to change and control his own brain waves. The information is often provided in the form of a video game, so that the training is more interesting. The player becomes successful at playing the game by changing his brainwave frequencies to be more optimal for his particular condition. A person with ADHD will be trained to produce more brain waves in the higher frequencies that are associated with focus, and to produce less of the slow brain waves associated with day-dreaming, or even sleep. We have seen the technology successfully used for ADHD, Sleep Disorders, alcoholism, and anxiety disorders. We have also used the technology with athletes for peak performance training and greater situational awareness.
Studies by Lubar and others have reported the potential value of this treatment, but the medical community, often backed by pharmaceutical dollars, never really bought into it. The medical community typically replied with the demand for double-blind studies, as one would do with pills. But there are many things that do not need to be studied with double-blind studies.
Take, for example, a study on the effectiveness of weight lifting to increase strength. Would such a study be done with a double-blind protocol? No, of course not. You cannot trick a person into thinking they are lifting weights hard when they are not. Another example would be the relationship between reading and learning. If one were to study the question of whether or not reading can increase learning, the researcher would not be able to look at the effectiveness of reading by use of a double-blind study design. There are no placebos for books, and the subject would know whether he was reading or not. And EEG biofeedback training is similar. Its effectiveness does not need to be studied through a double-blind protocol, as the control group will quickly know that they are being tricked. The control group becomes unnecessary to the researcher, and unmotivated to participate, very quickly. The pharmaceutical companies know this, and the medical community knows this, but this is the argument that they have used to down-play the potential contribution that EEG Biofeedback training could make in the treatment of ADHD.
It is either fortunate, or unfortunate, but this will be the research design for the Ohio State study.
In their pilot study, Dr. Arnold and Dr. Lofthouse will randomly assign 36 boys and girls ages six to twelve to receive either EEG neurofeedback in the context of computer games or a placebo EEG treatment. The researchers say that during the placebo treatments the participant will experience pre-programmed game effects that are not affected by his or her brain wave activity, but the reality of it is that it will take about three sessions before everyone in the placebo group knows that they are being tricked. People learn quickly when they are controlling what is taking place on the computer, and when they are not, so the control group part of the study will be a waste of time very soon into the project.
Further, if the study were to use a CPT test, such as the TOVA, to measure changes in performance, there would be no need for a placebo group as these tests have no placebo effect. These tests are not impacted at all by placebos. People either perform better on the tasks or they do not.
But the good news is that by using the double-blind study design, although unnecessary, the study will potentially be published in medical journals where the results will have to be considered by the medical community.
Subjects in the treatment group also will be randomly assigned to receive their treatment either twice or three times a week to see the effects of treatment frequency. All participants will complete forty treatments total. Parent and teacher rating scales will be used as the measure of improved performance, which is too bad as they are highly subjective.
We certainly wish L.Eugene Arnold, M.D., and Nicholas Lofthouse, Ph.D., of The Ohio State University all the best of success in this project, and believe that they will contribute a great deal of information to the medical community on the effectiveness of EEG Biofeedback training.
If the reader would like to learn more about the effectiveness of Neurofeedback in treating ADHD, consider the study entitled, A Comparison of EEG Biofeedback and Psychostimulants in Treating Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorders, by Thomas P. Rossiter, and Theodore J. La Vaque. It is published in the Journal of Neurotherapy, Summer 1995. Also visit these two websites: the Brian Othmer Foundation at http://brianothmerfoundation.org/scientificarticlehome.html and the EEG Spectrum website at http://eegspectrum.com/Articles/ScientificArticles/ for a more research articles. Finally, Google the keywords: Joel Lubar (he is at the University of Tennessee), Neurofeedback ADHD, or EEG Biofeedback ADHD, for other articles.
You will find accurate and clear information on parenting a child or teenagers with ADHD at the ADD ADHD Information Library - http://newideas.net with Clinical Editor Dr. Douglas Cowan. Find over 350 research articles, parenting tips, and helpful tools for parents and teachers. Learn more about ADHD at the Centers for Disease Control site.
Monday, April 1, 2013
Diagnosing Sleep Apnea, with Dr. Catherine McGregor of Lyndhurst Ontario, Canada
Diagnosing Sleep Apnea, with Dr. Catherine McGregor of Lyndhurst Ontario, Canada
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Importance of your Skin's pH
Our skin’s functions are too many to go through here in detail, however it protects our ‘insides’ from the external environment, acting both as a barrier and a filter between ‘outside’ and ‘inside’.
The skin helps in regulating our body’s temperature, like when we have a fever or we’re physically working hard, we tend to sweat, which is the body’s way to attempt to lower the temperature.
Our skin also protects us from harmful substances entering our body, and it eliminates many toxins. This takes workload off our Liver and Kidneys to filter out by-products from our body’s metabolism. The skin also breathes!
The pores of our skin are made up of a combination of oil and sweat glands (sebaceous and sudoriferous glands) helping to keep our skin healthy and elastic. An excessive sebum secretion is often associated with oily skin and acne. This is particularly common in adolescents as the increased levels of sex hormones stimulate sebum production and secretion. When in balance, the combined excretion of oil and sweat from the skin’s pores has a pH of about 5.5.
This slightly acidic layer, also referred to as the “Acid Mantle”, is our body’s first defence mechanism against bacteria invading it and is not a favourable environment bacterial growth to occur. This defence layer develops at puberty, which is why children are more susceptible to disease, viruses and fungal infections such are ringworm. The pH of children’s skin is closer to neutral (pH 7).
At puberty, however, we start to produce more hair on our bodies. Hair follicles have an associated sebaceous gland or glands which become active as hair growth increases, causing changes in the skin’s pH. The hormones that control sweat also become active and the whole surface of a teenager’s skin is totally different to that of a young child. This is our body’s way to increase our defence system.
The pH of normal, healthy human skin is somewhere between 4.5 and 6. However, this varies with age. Typically, newborns have a pH closer to neutral (pH 7) that quickly turns acidic in order to protect young children’s skin.
In the late teens to early 20’s, our Acid Mantle is well developed and provides good protection against potentially harmful, external environmental factors. Our skin usually looks healthy, heals quickly when injured and seems to take care of itself.
With increasing age however, the skin’s pH becomes more and more neutral, and thus more susceptible to bacterial growth. This reduced acidity kills fewer bacteria than before, leaving the skin susceptible to bacterial growth and infections. The skin weakens as a result and begins developing problems with increasing age. (Interestingly, the pH value rises beyond 6 when a person actually suffers from a skin problem or skin disease.)
The aging process of the skin causes biochemical changes in collagen and elastin, the connective tissues underlying the skin, which give the skin its firmness (collagen) and elasticity (elastin). The rates of loss of skin firmness and elasticity differs from individual to individual, depending on their genetic makeup, general health, over exposure to the sun, skin care regime, or lack there of, and other factors.
As the skin becomes less elastic, it also becomes drier; the underlying fatty tissue begins to disappear resulting in the skin beginning to sag. Our skin is less supple, and wrinkles begin to form. At this stage, our skin is more easily injured, heals more slowly and tends to dry out more quickly.
As outlined above, the skin’s pH is important and maintaining a slightly acidic pH of around 5.5 is critical.
The skin’s pH value is one of the major contributors to acne and other skin problems. Propionibacterium acnes is a bacteria that normally lives on the skin and is a normal bacteria found in all persons regardless of the presence or absence of acne.
However, in individuals prone to acne, the number of P. acnes is greatly increased. It has been found that the growth of this bacteria is very much dependent on the pH value of the skin and its growth is at its minimum at the normal skin pH of 5.5. A slight shift towards the alkaline pH would provide a better environment in which it can thrive.
One of the major culprits that radically alter the pH of the skin, is soap. Ordinary, commercially available soaps are highly alkaline (pH range 9-11) and raise the skin’s pH to be much more alkaline. This can be adjusted by using products such as the Wild Herb Toner or Milk of Roses Toner available from http://www.wildcrafted.com.au/Toners.html, depending on your skin type. These toners restore normal pH of the skin and thus provide an environment not conducive to the growth of bacteria. In addition, soap dries out the skin, because of its high alkalinity. Thus if you choose to use a commercially available soap, you must restore the pH of your skin to prevent loss of moisture and the excessive growth of bacteria. It is important to remember that this applies to the entire surface of your skin, not just the face.
Instead of using ordinary soap, you need to use products such as the Skin Renewal Gel from Wildcrafted Herbal Products, which cleanses your skin, removing dead skin cells and leaving your skin’s pH as it is meant to be. Following this with the use of a Toner will close the open pores, preventing blackheads and loss of moisture from the skin.
Another factor that helps in regulating your skin’s pH is the presents of microflora on your skin. Staphylococcus epidermis is involved in the breakdown of fatty acids, and is therefore partly responsible for the acidic pH of skin. The use of ordinary soap, not only changes the pH of the skin to be more alkaline, effectively removing the protective acid mantle, but also kills the bacteria responsible for creating, at least in part, the acidic pH of your skin – a double whammy.
It is therefore of great importance to have a good skin care regime in which high quality, natural skin care products are employed. There are a couple of simple steps to take before buying a particular brand of natural skin care products.
1. Identify the skin type(s) on the face. There are usually two or more. One skin type is usually isolated to the T-Zone (forehead and nose), the other applies to the rest of the facial skin.
2. Carefully select your natural skin care products. It is not good enough to choose products, which add natural ingredients to an otherwise non-natural base crème or lotion, as is the case in many supermarket brands. READ the label carefully, ask questions and if you are buying the products on-line, make sure there is a guarantee that allows you some time to evaluate the products before they need to be returned for a refund.
3. Look for manufacturers that have qualified herbalists or naturopaths on staff. These people generally do not support the use of artificial ingredients because it goes against everything they teach their patients, friends and family. – For the most part, it’s a pretty good indication that the products are pure, when natural therapists are in charge of the formulation of the products.
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