Complementary and alternative therapies: considerations for families after international adoption

Paving Plant-Food-Derived Bioactives as Effective Therapeutic Agents in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder, where social and communication deficits and repetitive behaviors are present. Plant-derived bioactives have shown promising results in the treatment of autism. In this sense, this review is aimed at providing a careful view on the use of plant-derived bioactive molecules for the treatment of autism. Among the plethora of bioactives, curcumin, luteolin, and resveratrol have revealed excellent neuroprotective effects and can be effectively used in the treatment of neuropsychological disorders. However, the number of clinical trials is limited, and none of them have been approved for the treatment of autism or autism-related disorder. Further clinical studies are needed to effectively assess the real potential of such bioactive molecules.

Psychiatric comorbidities in autism spectrum disorder: A comparative study between DSM-IV-TR and DSM-5 diagnosis

Background/Objective: The heterogeneous clinical presentations of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) pose a significant challenge for sample characterization. Therefore the main goal of DSM-5 must be to identify subgroups of ASD, including comorbidity disorders and severity. The main goal of this study is to explore the psychiatric comorbidities and the severity of symptoms that could be relevant for the phenotype characterization in ASD and also to compare these results according to the different classification criteria between the DSM-IV-TR and the DSM-5. Method: A comparative study of severity and psychiatric comorbidities was carried out between a sample of participants that only met criteria for Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) according to the DSM-IV-TR and a sample of participants that also met ASD criteria according to DSM-5 classification. The recruitment of children was via educational (N = 123). The psychiatric symptoms, comorbid disorders and severity of symptoms were assessed through The Nisonger Child Behavior Rating Form, clinical interview and The Inventory of Autism Spectrum Disorder, respectively. The psychiatric comorbidities considered were: anxiety, eating behavioural problems, self-aggressiveness, hetero–aggressiveness, self-harm, obsessive compulsive disorder and attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder. Results: Statistically significant differences between both groups were found regarding obsessive compulsive disorder, eating behavioural problems and severity. Conclusions: The results support the hypothesis that patients who meet the DSM-5 criteria have more severe symptoms, not only regarding the core autistic symptoms but also in relation with psychiatric comorbidities.

Hair analysis in health assessment

BACKGROUND

Hair analysis is used for estimation of the nutritional status of individuals. In the present work, a systematic review on the relation between the mineral composition of hair and the physical or mental disorders is discussed. Detailed information of examined populations, methods of sample preparations and analytical techniques are presented.

METHODS

A systematic literature search in four electronic databases Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science and Medline (from 1997 to 2012/01/31) for English language articles was performed. In addition, a reference list and manual search was undertaken.

RESULTS

The following number of studies was included: 66. Most of the authors reported that there exists a correlation between deficiency or excess of some elements in hair and occurrence of some diseases, such as: autism, cancer, hypertension, myocardial infarction, kidney disease and diabetes mellitus. However, not all results were consistent.

CONCLUSIONS

Most of the authors concluded that the profile of hair mineral imbalance might be useful as a diagnostic tool for the early diagnosis of many diseases. However, it seems that there is a need to standardize sample preparation procedures, in particular washing and mineralization methods.

Clinical challenges of adoption: Views from Montreal and Tel Aviv

Adoption is accompanied by well-known risk factors that contribute to unique clinical challenges for children, parents, and clinicians. Adoption also serves to illustrate issues that remain relatively "silent" in the typical transition to parenthood. In this article, the authors review the normal developmental challenges that parents face during adoption, the adoption-related risk factors that may impinge on the child's development and attachment process, and the impact of adoption on the child's development of identity and filiations. We will review and illustrate clinical conditions often associated with adoption. In many countries, adoptive parents are reluctant to consult mental health clinicians during the first year of the adoption. The cases presented here illustrates the need to implement routine clinical programs for early detection and intervention of adoptive parent-infant dyads and triads at risk.