Diagnosing Autism – Tests and Challenges

The earlier you diagnose, the faster you can start the specific line of treatment – is a universal thought process adhered to by the medical faculty around the globe. For an ailment like autism spectrum disorders [ASD], coming to a confirmatory diagnosis poses lot many problems and challenges that it at times becomes too difficult to diagnose it in time. Here, we will discuss the various aspects of diagnosing an autism spectrum disorders.

The first challenge that we face in doing so is the lack of any kind of medical test to confirm the autistic disorder. You just can’t pull blood from all children at birth and test them genetically. The diagnosis is predominantly based on the observations about the development and behavioral traits of a child, thus it becomes impossible to detect such ailment before the child attains a specific age that is more than 18 years. The reason being there has been a lot of physiological variation that one can expect in the usual or normal development of a child. Developmental delay has been a common occurrence, and is not known to cause any major obstacle in the overall growth of the child – mentally, physically or otherwise. Thus, just because a child does not start communicating till 1 year of age, may not be autism in making.

Yet another problem faced by the pediatricians is the lack of awareness in the parental community about autistic disorders – especially regarding the various forms of it. Autism is still considered an equivalent or just another form of mental retardation by most of the people. Thus if a child fails to communicate, or keep an eye contact, it will not be reported to the pediatrician immediately, thinking it just a part of slow speech development. When the child does not take interest in social interactions, it can be mis-understood as a moodiness or shyness, instead of looking at it as a possible autistic trait. Denial also plays a significant role, thus rejecting the possibility, even if the awareness about autistic traits is made.

To avoid this, every child should be screened for developmental delays and disabilities at regular intervals of 9 months, 18 months and 24-30 months of their age. Additional visits can be arranged if the child shows some traits other than the normal ones. The children who give a history of preterm birth, or low birth weight, or having a sibling with an ASD should be screened more thoroughly and frequently, including an educational session with the parents or guardians or care-takers to understand what to expect, and what not.

The child can be further directed to comprehensive diagnostic evaluation, if shows positive signs of any traits characterizing ASDs. It can be done by developmental pediatricians, child neurologists and finally child psychologists, for refined problem definition and management planning.

To conclude, I would repeat the motto – earlier we define the problem, healthier we can resolve it.

Homeopathic Cure for Canine Epilepsy

Pets are among the most favorite subjects for any pet owner, and if your pet suffers with convulsions or epilepsy, it is a quite distressing experience. There can be increased salivation, tonic clonic spasms, involuntary howling and in few cases listless state remaining for long time, with a strange look in the eyes. Being sensitive souls, dogs can anticipate the attack much earlier and get restless. Those who have witnessed these attacks would only know how scary the situation can be.

A seizure is nothing but an uncontrollable muscle activity caused by an abnormal upswing in the nervous activities from the brain. A seizure can be an individual incidence, while epilepsy is a term to indicate the recurring pattern of getting seizures, a habitual or chronic state. Seizures themselves are never life-threatening, except if the dog hurts himself badly during the fit of convulsion, by hitting to some object. The sustained seizure activity, often called as status epilepticus, can prove fatal at times, since it hampers the brain function for the significant time.

The causes for getting seizures in dogs are numerous. The potential factors include various kinds of infections – like distemper, toxoplasmosis, cryptococcosis; hydrocephalus; various kinds of tumors or growths within or around the brain; hypoglycemia; low levels of calcium; insecticide ingestion or idiopathic, where there is no firm cause identifiable for the seizure occurrence.

As regards the management of the seizures in dogs by homeopathic treatment, one needs to take a comprehensive history and base the prescription on the available totality. The pattern can be treated with a well-selected deep acting remedy, while the acute attacks can be prevented or curbed with a acute presentation remedy, selected as per the symptomatology. Let us see some cases to explain this in detail:

Dinky, a female Labrador, used to get tonic clonic seizures especially around the new moon. The attack used to start with the lower limbs, ascending to the abdomen and followed by loss of consciousness with foaming at the mouth. Left sided predominance was noted by her owner. The frequency was almost once in 10 days. Few doses of Cuprum met 200 given on weekly basis stopped the activity within a couple of months. The treatment commenced with a dose of Tuberculinum 1M [as a miasmatic remedy].

Browney, another Labrador female, used to get seizures just with foaming at mouth and a loss of consciousness. The presentation had a slow insidious pace with most of the episodes starting towards the evening. The frequency of attacks was irregular, from an attack within a week to an attack in 4 months. The dog used to stop drinking water almost since morning, whenever she got an attack. She also showed strong fear of other dogs, especially the male ones. Pulsatilla 1M prescribed after every attack cured the dog from the epileptic ailment within a year’s time.

Advantages of homeopathy:

The biggest advantage is the curative action – and not just controlling the attacks as done by the usual anti-epileptic drugs [AEDs] prescribed by the vet. It also keeps the dog in an active state, unlike those treated with AEDs, who show a dampened activity due to the effect of the drug. Homeopathic treatment, since based on the constitutional features, also helps the dog to get relieved of the concomitant ailments or behavioural problems.

After experiencing the wonderful effects of homeopathic remedies, I would certainly recommend it in the treatment of epilepsy in dogs.

Autism cure with homeopathy

Introduced by Dr Leo Kanner of the John Hopkins, in 1943, autistic spectrum disorders include a group of disorders including autistic disorder, Asperger’s syndrome, pervasive developmental disorder, Rett syndrome and childhood disintegrative disorder. These disorders are characterized by varying degree of impairment in communication skills, social interactions, and restricted, repetitive or stereo-typed patterns of behavior. A lot of research is ongoing to find any kind of therapeutic measure for autism, but there has not been any significant option available. On the contrary, homeopathy does play effective therapeutic role in its treatment. Let me demonstrate this with a case example.

Nimish [name changed], a 8 yrs old boy diagnosed with mild autism with Asperger’s syndrome, presented with complaints of spells of hyperactivity and excitement, where he used to cry or laugh aloud on trivial stimulations. He had a habit of rocking himself constantly and aimlessly playing with his fingers [a common autistic feature]. He could follow complex commands easily and could convey his needs in short sentences; but he could not reproduce or rehearse a small story told just a few minutes back. His attention span was noted to be very less – except for the film songs. The psychometric assessment had also mentioned about a global developmental delay [by six months] with slow writing and ill-defined handwriting. His IQ was 60+. He could not button his shirt properly but could put on the socks easily. He was toilet-trained – but in spite of that used to get nocturnal enuresis once or twice a week.

On emotional plane, he showed a severe violent behavior when contradicted or teased by anybody. He used to throw whatever he could hold on to, and had even bitten one of his friends in such fit of anger. He showed strong fear of heights, and he liked rhythm a lot. He could dance all day on the film songs [as mentioned earlier, the attention span too was significantly better with respect to the songs].

Physically – nimish is ambithermal to hot, has aversion to sweets and sweats a bit more on scalp.

The case was referred to homeopathy by the treating pediatrician, with a doubt about the exact outcome especially with the pathology in mind. The prescribing totality was:

· Anger – violent

· Anger – contradiction intolerant of

· Anger – rage

· Music – sensitive to, rhythmic

· Music - ameliorates

· Fear of heights

· Concentration – difficult

· Involuntary movements

First prescription: [27 October 2009]:

Tarentula hisp 200 twice daily x 1 month

Follow ups:

Nimish visited his grandmother in Bangalore after the first visit, and due to some unavoidable circumstances had to stay there for next four months. His grandmother called in between reporting “slight improvement” and since no details were available from her, same medication regiment was continued for couple of months [Jan & Feb 2010].

19 March 2010:

Hyperactivity and violence has reduced a lot; Understanding has improved – could grasp the normal school he attended while at Bangalore; Now can button his shirt perfectly; Recollection of story and telling it later has improved – though makes some mistakes; Enuresis has stopped completely since Feb.

Rx: Tarentula H 200 BD x 1 month

08 June 2010: reported on phone from bangalore

Could not continue the medication for a couple of months. overall he has improved a lot. Even the neighbors can feel the difference. Recent psychometry showed his IQ in the range of 75-80.

Discussion:

There has been a lot of emphasis to understand various treatment options available in the complementary medicinal system, especially homeopathy for the autistic cases. This case clearly indicates how effectively homeopathy can deliver results in autism. I have also seen improvement in the eye-to-eye contact and social interaction in other cases, where it was the presenting complaint.

For the parents of autistic children, who are reading this article, please note that Tarentula was selected for Nimish as per the symptom similarity and thus may not help all autistic children. An individual assessment is necessary from a trained homeopath for a effective treatment.

Mental wellness of your pet

Though we may not see any of our pets smoking a cigar or sitting in a pub to relieve their mental stress, they do experience mental stress just like us. It can have some serious impacts on their lives, and eventually on ours as well. Here we will discuss the things that you can do to harbor a positive emotional stimulation in your pet on a daily basis, to promote mental wellness within your pet.

• When you bring a puppy home in his first few days on earth, do make sure that you desensitize him properly, to encourage social awareness in him. Most of the emotional traumas originate from the fear and anxiety experienced by the puppy in these tender days, due to unsocial treatments received.
• Just as exercise is must for us, it is for our pets as well. But don’t just restrict yourself with taking your dog for a morning walks; make some interesting changes in it – change the road, do jogging, play fetch-a-ball, at times make him run behind your pace-changing car… your dog should look ahead for what’s stored for him today. It will make you both happy by losing the monotony out of the daily walks.
• Your pet needs room to roam freely. A most of the times tied dog will always find it boring to spend his life within a tied-space.
• Though variety adds spice, the dogs love habits and pattern. Thus sticking to some pattern or routine will always keep their stress level to minimum. The exercise or the eating menu might change every day, but the timing should not.
• Maintain the instincts of your pet alive by designing some games like ‘hide and seek’.
• Let your pet know that you are the boss. Not maintaining the dominance hierarchy will only make the things worse.
• Have your pet neutered, since this will keep them less aggressive and frustrated, if not allowed to satisfy their sexual urges.
• If you are throwing a party at home, where you expect a lot of people visiting, keep your dog away from the crowd to avoid the stress of getting exposed to a lot many strangers at once.
• If you are planning to get a new pet, do take care of the stress-levels of the adult. A suitable Bach flower remedy combination [consisting of chicory, holly or vine] can help your pet to take the situation in much positive way.
• Give them fresh food and water.
• Last but not the least, spend enough time with them. Observe their skin, their legs for injury. Make a good touch with them, this will improve the bond between you and your pet, which will improve their health to a great level.

In spite of all this, if you find your pet having any emotional disturbance, take help of suitable Bach flower remedies.