The Top 10 Myths About ADHD - ADD/ADHD Center. Both girls and boys get ADHD, and people with ADHD can be very smart. There are lots of myths out there about this disorder, and science is finding the facts to dispel them. When a disorder is poorly understood, myths about the condition are sometimes more widely believed than the actual facts. One disease associated with a lot of myths is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, better known as ADHD. If you or a loved one has been affected by this disorder, it’s important you learn the truth behind the misconceptions. Myth No. 1: Only “hyper” children have ADHD. Not all children with ADHD are noisy and excessively energetic. The latest official ADHD guidelines from the American Psychiatric Association divide ADHD into three subtypes: inattentive, hyperactive-impulsive, and combined (these children demonstrate both hyperactive and inattentive traits).
Myth No. 2. Parents, media reports, and sometimes even physicians make this claim. A number of studies have examined this. Myth No. 3. Don’t leave learning to the young. Older brains can grow, too. While some areas of the brain are hard-wired from birth or early childhood, other areas — especially in the cerebral cortex, which is central to higher cognitive powers like language and thought, as well as sensory and motor functions — can be, to a remarkable extent, rewired as we grow older. In fact, the brain has an astonishing ability to rebound from damage — even from something as devastating as the loss of sight or hearing. As a physician who treats patients with neurological conditions, I see this happen all the time. For example, one patient of mine who had been deafened by scarlet fever at the age of 9, was so adept at lip-reading that it was easy to forget she was deaf. Once, without thinking, I turned away from her as I was speaking. “You mean you can no longer see me,” I said.
“You may call it seeing,” she answered, “but I experience it as hearing.” In a similar way, blind people often find ways of “seeing.” Basking in a Workout’s Long, Mysterious Afterglow. Few Adults Have Annual Vision Exams. Yvetta Fedorova Poor vision can lead to job loss, social difficulties and the pain and cost of falls and accidents.
And though routine eye exams can help to detect the early signs of vision loss and prevent the progression of some eye diseases, few adults make their annual appointments, writes Jane Brody in this week’s Personal Health column. A nationwide survey showed that only a small minority of those most at risk get the yearly eye exams that could detect a vision problem and prevent, delay or even reverse its progression. Fully 86 percent of those who already have an eye disease do not get routine exams, the telephone survey of 1,004 adults revealed.The survey was commissioned by Lighthouse International, the world-renowned nonprofit organization in New York that seeks to prevent vision loss and treats those affected.
In an interview, Lighthouse’s president, Mark G. How often should you have an eye exam? When the Diagnosis Is 'Dead Butt Syndrome' Jen Miller at the finish of the Ocean Drive 10 Miler in Wildwood, N.J. My butt, unfortunately, is dead. “Dead butt syndrome,” the sports medicine doctor said to me after making me go through a series of circus-act contortions that involved swiveling my hip in all directions. His voice was very serious, his tone stern. I wondered if I should start making funeral arrangements for my rear, maybe a New Orleans-style blowout parade? Hold the tuba. My butt’s not really dead. It can’t be revived with defibrillator paddles, but it can be fixed. The technical name of the condition I have is gluteus medius tendinosis — an inflammation of the tendons in the gluteus medius, one of three large muscles that make up the butt.
I’ve been running for five years, but I’d never heard of the problem. “A new thought in running medicine is that almost all lower extremity injuries, whether they involve your calf, your plantar fascia or your iliotibial band, are linked to the gluteus medius,” said Dr. Jen A. Can Humming Ease Sinus Problems? Dealing with a cold is bad enough, but when it leads to a , the misery can double. Some researchers have proposed a surprising remedy: channeling your inner Sinatra. Sinus infections — which afflict more than 37 million Americans every year — generally occur when the lining of the sinuses becomes inflamed, trapping air and pus and other secretions, and leading to pain, headaches and .
Because the inflammation is often caused by upper-respiratory infections, people with and are more vulnerable than others to . Keeping the sinuses healthy and infection-free requires ventilation — keeping air flowing smoothly between the sinus and nasal . And what better way to keep air moving through the sinuses and nasal cavity than by humming a tune? In a study in The American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, researchers examined this by comparing airflow in people when they hummed and when they quietly exhaled. ANAHAD O’CONNOR scitimes@nytimes.com. Serious Mental Health Needs Seen Growing at Colleges. From HCG Diets to Shake Weights: Fitness Trends in Review. From tapeworms and Thighmasters to fad diets and blubber-shaking machinery, the only sure thing in the fitness world is that there will always be a new trend claiming to be the secret to quick and easy weightloss or eternal youth.
Often, these fads make unrealistic promises or are downright unhealthy. Sometimes, though, trends bubble up for a reason—because they work. Here’s a look at five current fitness trends and my suggestions as to whether you should “hit it” or “quit it.” HCG Diet: Fad diets are a dime a dozen. All the ones that “work” use the same trick: They have some loosely-tested medical theory that distracts you from the fact that you are just doing good old calorie cutting. This is true of most low-carb and non-medically-indicated gluten-free diets, and it’s certainly true with the HCG diet. The Verdict: Quit It. P90X: The saying goes, “At any given time, there is an episode of I Love Lucy playing somewhere in the world.” The Verdict: Hit it! The Verdict: Quit It. The Benefits of Exercising Before Breakfast. Ian Spanier/Getty Images The holiday season brings many joys and, unfortunately, many countervailing dietary pitfalls.
Even the fittest and most disciplined of us can succumb, indulging in more fat and calories than at any other time of the year. The health consequences, if the behavior is unchecked, can be swift and worrying. A recent study by scientists in Australia found that after only three days, an extremely high-fat, high-calorie diet can lead to increased blood sugar and insulin resistance, potentially increasing the risk for Type 2 diabetes. Waistlines also can expand at this time of year, prompting self-recrimination and unrealistic New Year’s resolutions.
But a new study published in The Journal of Physiology suggests a more reliable and far simpler response. Run or bicycle before breakfast. Their early-morning routines, however, were not. The experiment lasted for six weeks. There are caveats, of course. Seek Advice to Avoid Weight Training Injuries - Jane E. Brody. To be sure, these injuries are less common than, say, those linked to running, cycling or competitive sports. But a national study, published online in March by The American Journal of Sports Medicine, revealed that these mishaps are on the rise and that they spare no body part, gender or age group. The study covered 25,335 people aged 6 to 100 who were taken to emergency rooms with weight-training injuries. The research team, from the Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, said that worked out to nearly one million such injuries throughout the country, an increase of 48 percent from the beginning of the 18-year study period to the end.
This year Jessica Cleary, a 40-year-old mother from Chicago, joined the growing number of injured weight trainers. Ms. Unable to talk and having trouble breathing, she was taken to an emergency room, where tests showed she had fractured her larynx. “At another gym on a similar piece of equipment, a woman broke her neck,” Ms. Safety First. Untangling the Myths About Attention Disorder. In the face of “overwhelming” scientific evidence, they complained, A.D.H.D. was regularly portrayed in the media as “myth, fraud or benign condition” — an artifact of too-strict teachers, perhaps, or too much television. In recent years, it has been rarer to hear serious doubt that the disorder really exists, and the evidence explaining its neurocircuitry and has become more convincing and more complex. Even so, I’ve lately read a number of articles and essays that use attention (or its lack) as a marker and a metaphor for something larger in society — for the multitasking, the electronic distractions, the sense that the nature of concentration may be changing, that people feel nibbled at, overscheduled, distracted, irritable.
But A.D.H.D. is not a metaphor. It is not the and rambunctiousness that happen when grade-schoolers are deprived of recess, or the distraction of socially minded teenagers in the smartphone era. “There’s a lot we still don’t know,” said Bruce F. Dr. Dr. Dr. Personal Health - A Breathing Technique Offers Help for People With Asthma.