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Home Tag: "ASD" (Page 3)

Tag: ASD

21Aug

Autism or ASD is a condition most well-known for its behavioral symptoms. In the past, ASD was categorized into three major classes, with Asperger’s Syndrome being considered the most “high functioning” of early groupings. Today, however, a more nuanced understanding has led to a doing away with strict groupings, and an assessment of where specific, individual symptoms lie along the autism disorder spectrum.

ASD however, is not a disease like pneumonia. There is no cure, so someone, such as a child, diagnosed with ASD, can’t have it removed simply getting an injection of antibiotics. The ASD condition can only be managed, and there are many different ways to address it. For people with only mild ASD, no treatment may even be necessary, as these people will distinguish themselves in interactions with others as having eccentric or quirky mannerisms. But for people with serious ASD symptoms, even the simple etiquette like not randomly striking out at someone in violence may be too difficult.

This has resulted in many different approaches to managing ASD and its symptoms. In some cases, intensive behavioral therapy can train ASD patients to overcome their behavioral impulses and better regulate themselves unaided. In other cases, medications, such as antipsychotics may be required. But there is now a new type of treatment that is being explored, known as stem cell therapy. But what is it, and how much does it cost?

Using Blank Cells

Stem cell therapy is a type of medical treatment that first found usage in helping cancer patients to overcome their illness. Cancer is a general medical term for any condition where the cells of the body “rebel,” and instead of following the “blueprint” that is the DNA of the patient, they reproduce without limits, or even proper functions, eventually overwhelming the body with “bad” cells that outnumber the healthy ones.

Stem cell therapy uses, as the name implies, a specific type of cell known as the stem cell. Stem cells have the nickname “master cell.” Other cells in the body, if they are capable of reproducing, can only reproduce new versions of themselves, so blood cells can only grow new blood cells, and skin cells can only regrow skin. A heart cell can never grow lung cells, as one extreme example. Stem cells, however, ignore all this and can grow into whatever cell is required. They are the basic building block of human reproduction when a single, fertilized egg cell divides into numerous cells, and then those cells start to specialize into the different organs, like brain, eyes, skin, and bone that make up a person.

It is because of this versatility in “rewriting” themselves into healthy versions of whatever cells are needed that stem cell therapy is already a medically recommended technique for certain types of cancer, such as leukemia. But now, applications for stem cell therapy are spreading to other conditions, including ALS, multiple sclerosis, and ASD.

Not FDA Approved

When looking at the cost of stem cell therapy for ASD, one of the important factors for the cost will be travel, especially for residents of the USA. While stem cell therapy is approved of as a treatment for leukemia, the Food & Drug Administration, the official governing body for safe substances/treatments in America, has only officially recognized stem cell therapy for leukemia. This means that for any of the other possible conditions stem cell therapy could be applied to, no American hospital or clinic will perform the treatment, since it is not legally recognized as viable for anything except leukemia.

This means that traveling and accommodation must be factored into the budget for stem cell therapy. Other countries throughout the world have the facilities to properly and safely administer stem cell treatments. Mexico is one, Georgia in Europe, is another.

The Process

There are two methods of undertaking stem cell therapy, based on the situation a patient is facing after being medically evaluated.

Usage Of Own Stem Cells

If no other sources are available, stem cells can be harvested from within the bone marrow of the patient. This requires an extra procedure, where the patient is put under general anesthetic and the stem cells are harvested. After that, the stem cells are transplanted through intrathecal means, which usually involves an injection into the spinal canal, to facilitate the movement of the stem cells to the brain.

Usage Of Cord Blood

If there is a wish to avoid harvesting stem cells from the bone marrow, another option, if available, is to use the “cord blood” that may have been preserved from younger siblings. Upon birth, umbilical cord blood is rich in stem cells and can, upon request be preserved. If siblings, or the patient, have had cord blood preserved, this can be used for stem cell therapy once retrieved and properly prepared.

In general, stem cell therapy itself averages between USD$12000-15000 depending on the country and technique. A Georgia clinic, for example, reliably charges USD$12000 + VAT for all procedures.

19Aug

Autism Spectrum Disorder, or ASD, is a condition that affects behavior primarily. There are some physical symptoms associated with it, gastrointestinal inflammation being a very common occurrence among those diagnosed with ASD, but what the condition is most well-known for is the way it affects the behavior of the person. Because it is a condition, and not a disease or infection, such as pneumonia, there is no injection, antibiotics, or other treatment that can cure ASD. The symptoms can only be diagnosed, assessed, and then managed.

Because this is one of the key factors for getting good treatment for ASD is proper classification. If you don’t know what you’re dealing with, you won’t know how to treat it. This has been one of the biggest hurdles to those with ASD getting the help they needed. For example, it was only in the 1980s that ASD was even recognized as a disorder; before that, people with the conditioned were diagnosed as being schizophrenic.

This was problematic for many years because some people with ASD can, and do, respond positively to the prescription of antipsychotics, but it is not appropriate for everyone. This is one of the reasons why classifying and categorizing ASD has, in recent years, become more comprehensive and accurate.

Another example of this is ICD 10 and the diagnosis of severe autism. So what is ICD 10? Why and how is it being used?

An Administrative Standard

ICD stands for International Classification of Diseases, and it is created by the World Health Organization. The ICD-10 standard being discussed was delayed by several years, due to many objections from both American medical and insurance organizations. The objections were raised because of the growing complexity of the ICD system, as well as the ways it complicated an activity of particular importance to the USA, billing for insurance companies.

While the rest of the world uses the ICD system primarily for diagnosis, the USA also relies on it for classifying and approving the payment of medical services from medical insurance companies. Despite the USA being in the minority compared to the rest of the world for what the ICD system was primarily used for, it wasn’t until the medical and insurance organizations of America were satisfied that the ICD’s 10th iteration, known as ICD-10, finally went into general release in 2013.

The Billing Issue

This means that by creating a standard, regarding diseases and other conditions, with a listing of what treatments are normally expected, insurance companies can more quickly determine whether all appropriate actions have been taken to pay—or not pay—on medical bills.

For example, if pneumonia were designated as T16, then this simple alphanumeric code is much easier to fill in forms, both paper and digital. It makes it easy to consult what the symptoms of T16 are, what the appropriate treatments are, and both doctors and insurance companies can check to see if all the “boxes” required for treating T16 have been met. If so, normal bureaucratic and financial actions, such as medical insurance covering payments, can now take place.

The ASD Designation

In the case of ASD, the general condition of autism is designated as F84. One important thing to note is that the ICD-10 designation is already out of date. In 2018, WHO released the ICD-11 classification system, so ICD-10 is already out of date, especially since it used the older forms of categorization that another American medical reference, the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders had already abandoned this form of categorization in with the publication of DSM-V in 2013. DSM-V diagnoses “collapse” different groupings of Autism into a single condition, ASD, while previous versions of DSM-III and DSM-IV categorized ASD patients into different groups. The ICD-10 system also used these same categorizations.

This is where severe autism under the old ICD-10 designation can come in. While children diagnosed under the current systems wouldn’t necessarily have these categorizations today, children diagnosed with F84 Autism had a subset of different, specific conditions that ran from F84.1 through to F84.9.

The most severe form of autism under the old ICD-10 standard was F84.4, named Overactive disorder associated with mental retardation and stereotyped movements. This was characterized by the following symptoms:

Severe mental retardation: Children diagnosed F84.4 was when evaluated for IQ, usually scored at 35, or less, where the average intelligence quotient is considered 100.

Hyperactivity: Children in this category show excessive levels of activity that is often paired with an inability to pay attention.

Stereotyped behaviors: In this case, stereotype refers to a repeated set of motions or behaviors that is triggered to a high degree. Rocking back and forth, complex hand movements, gazing, and other actions are repeated to excessive degrees, either unconsciously, or as a coping mechanism.

Severe autism can be extremely challenging for parents. This requires an extra level of care for a child, and likely means a very different, more attentive parental experience than what average families face. Patience and understanding are essential to the process.

15Aug

Autism, more correctly known as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is not a disease, like chickenpox or pneumonia, and thus, when people are diagnosed with it, there is no cure, such as antibiotics to make it go away. There are a few ways to manage the symptoms of ASD, such as traditional prescriptions of medications, though these fall more in line with anti-psychotics, rather than curatives. Other treatments are focused on behavioral therapy, teaching ASD children to manage and self-regulate their behavioral tendencies, such as learning to maintain eye contact when having conversations.

One recent development in treatments is the usage of stem cell therapy as a way to manage ASD. But what is stem cell therapy, and what do the stem cells themselves do that other forms of treatment aren’t managing? We’ll explain.

They Can Be Anything

Understanding stem cells and their incredible versatility means looking at the human reproductive process and going back to a fertilized egg in the womb. What starts as a single egg cell, fertilized by a sperm cell, develops, over the course of nine months, from one generic egg cell, into a fully-formed baby, complete with blood, lungs, a beating heart, and a brain that can think and feel. Stem cells are what make it possible for one, fertilized, undifferentiated cell, to grow into the specialized organs that make up a human.

The power of stem cells is that, unlike other cells, they are not “dedicated” to becoming just one thing. Once blood is formed, for example, if there’s any blood loss from a cut, replacement blood cells are grown from existing blood cells. Your brain can’t produce more blood cells; it can only produce more brain cells.

However, wherever stem cells go, they can program themselves to whatever is needed, even in the case of cells that aren’t reproducing correctly. This is why stem cell therapy became one of the most effective forms of treatment for certain types of cancer, such as leukemia, which is where stem cell therapy first went into widespread, medically approved practice.

The Supply Is Limited

Unfortunately, as useful as stem cells can be to the human body, beyond a certain point, they are just not that plentiful. When humans are developing in a mother’s womb, the need to develop all the specialized organs “from scratch” means that stem cells are in abundance during the pregnancy. This creates a substance that is colloquially known as “cord blood.”

Cord blood is really the various biological materials and fluids found in the placenta, which is the thin membrane that surrounds a baby during pregnancy. The cord in question refers to the umbilical cord, the direct connection the baby has to the mother, where all the nutrients required to fuel stem cell growth are transferred, while any waste material created during the pregnancy is also carried out, to prevent a toxic environment. Because of this intense flow of “biological traffic” within the umbilical cord, after birth occurs, it is the umbilical cord, with its “cord blood” that is still richly saturated in these valuable cells, which are no longer produced in such huge volume in either the mother or the child after birth has occurred.

The Post Birth Options

Just because birth has occurred and stem cells are not in “high production” anymore, that doesn’t mean that a supply of “fresh” stem cells is impossible, it’s just harder to gain access to. This is why, for example, a cut in the skin can easily heal, as the skin cells reproduce more skin, but in the case of a limb being lost to amputation, the skin, bones, muscles, and nerves cannot all regrow. There aren’t enough stem cells to do this.

After birth, people do still have some stem cells present in their body, but they are not as “versatile” as the stem cells that are produced during birth. These stem cells are stored in “out of the way places,” such as the bone marrow, meaning that retrieving them, while possible, is a much more complex and labor-intensive process than retrieving stem cells from cord blood. It’s possible, however, to modify bone marrow stem cells in the lab to become more “pluripotent,” though still not as flexible as cord cells. This smaller quantity of stem cells can be extracted from areas such as bone marrow, the brain, and the liver.

It’s important to note that it’s not just any stem cell that can be used in stem cell therapy. In the same way that a blood transfusion or organ transplant must be compatible with the patient; the same is true for stem cells. This is why cord blood from a child’s birth, or stem cells retrieved from a person’s bone marrow, guarantee 100% acceptance and compatibility with a patient while attempting to use random samples can result in rejection, and possibly even harm to the patient.

6Aug

Autism, which today is more accurately referred to as Autism Spectrum Disorder, or ASD, is a neurophysiological condition. While people diagnosed with ASD may exhibit some physical symptoms that require medical treatment, such as inflammation, the majority of ASD’s symptoms are behavioral.

This can mean people with ASD, especially children, at a critical juncture in their lives, can have major challenges integrating socially due to their behavioral symptoms. There is a range of different symptoms, such as an inability to maintain eye contact, unusual speech patterns, or even hostility. Some traditional medical treatments can help with managing ASD, but medical treatments do not help with the social component.

This is where is therapy can be important. Medical treatments such as administering anti-psychotics, or other medications, can suppress certain behaviors or symptoms, but children must still learn to socialize properly or perform other activities once behavior—such as hostility—has been reduced. Many different types of therapy help children to learn the behaviors that others may take for granted. Depending on the type of ASD symptoms a child has, different, effective forms of therapy include:

Occupational Therapy

The name may be misleading to some since this type of therapy isn’t about training people for employment opportunities. However, this type of therapy is about training people to perform activities that they can rely on to do themselves daily.

Occupational therapy focuses on assessing a child’s needs, especially when it comes to useful daily activities. Then it constructs therapeutic “training courses,” tailored to an ASD child’s sensibilities and needs to effectively learn those activities that give more agency to the child. The range of activities can include anything from learning to tie shoes correctly to training in sleeping quietly, running, skipping, other hand-eye coordination activities, and even self-regulation methods, such as controlling emotional arousal and remaining calm.

This is a very specific form of therapy that requires extensive evaluation of the child, and his or her ASD tendencies, understanding what the symptoms are, and where along the spectrum they lie. It is only after evaluating a child’s symptoms that a proper course of action can be determined for which therapies can be learned, and which may require further treatment or assistance.

Speech Therapy

Communication for most children is something that is unconsciously “absorbed” and internalized. Under normal conditions, children learn to interpret cues like the rising tone at the end of a sentence to indicate a question or the frown of an adult as disapproval. However, for those with ASD, these communication skills aren’t so easily learned.

One aspect of speech therapy is to more consciously reinforce and train these cues that other children learn without formal training, and impart them to those evaluated as being suitable to learn. This can mean that an ASD child trains to overcome a natural aversion to eye contact, and learns to look at people when speaking. In some cases, it can mean learning alternative forms of communications such as sign language.

Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA)

Applied Behavior Analysis is a very specific, structured form of training that works on a rewards-based system to create long-lasting, desired, behavioral changes. This may be administered by parents, professionals, or both, depending on the circumstances.

ABA has different techniques aimed at achieving different results. Verbal behavior intervention is a technique that is often used to help impart and retain important communication skills. Pivotal response treatment is a different method that is used to train specific social behavior for interacting with others. Early intensive behavioral intervention is a specific form of training best applied to children under the age of five if the ASD diagnosis has occurred early enough.

Stem Cell Therapy

Stem cell therapy, despite having the word “therapy” in its name, is not a behavioral training technique but is a medical procedure. However, as with behavioral therapy techniques, it may affect behavior. Stem cells are “blank cells” in a sense, in that they can reconfigure themselves to become any kind of cells in the human body, such as the brain, or liver or heart cells.

When stem cell therapy is used in ASD patients, it’s been found to help reduce certain behaviors, such as improving receptiveness to communication training and even reducing hostility and aggressiveness. However, stem cell therapy is a recent addition to the arsenal of therapies and treatments, and its full range of possible treatment outcomes is not yet completely documented. Stem cell therapy is medically documented to work, as it has already proven its worth as a form of cancer treatment. But now, stem cell therapy is exploring other avenues of treatment, such as Alzheimer’s and ASD, and this is where more research is being conducted, even as more results come in.

It’s always important to remember that different children will have different needs. If you suspect your child has ASD, get a professional evaluation, then decide from there, according to professional medical advice, what’s the most appropriate treatment.

1Jul

Autism is a difficult condition to deal with and diagnose, which is one of the reasons why, for so many years, autism was a challenge for medical professionals. Autism is now more properly known as Autism Spectrum Disorder, or ASD, which acknowledges the fact that that the intensity and specific symptoms of autism lie along a very broad spectrum.

This is why, in the past, some conditions were given entirely separate categories, such as Aspergers Syndrome. Today, more comprehensive research and a better understanding of the manifestation of symptoms have now more accurately included many seemingly disparate conditions under the umbrella of ASD. This is why some people who may appear to have severe communication and information processing issues can be diagnosed as autistic, while people with high functioning autism, who only appear a little bit eccentric in some respects both have the same condition; they just fall along with different areas of the spectrum.

ASD, unfortunately, does not have a cure. ASD symptoms can be treated and managed, but no vaccination or antibiotic can be administered that makes ASD go away. ASD knowledge, while growing, is still not absolute, and there is a great deal about this condition that is still unknown and still being researched all over the world.

However, despite the lack of a cure, progress is being made in ASD treatment and management. Depending on the type of ASD diagnosed, some people, for example, benefit from behavioral therapy, teaching children, for example, the mannerisms that others usually integrate subconsciously, such as maintaining eye contact while speaking. Others respond to medication, such as anti-psychotics. However, research and interesting results are coming from another avenue of treatment, and that is stem cell therapy.

The Stem Cell Discovery

Stem cells aren’t new, but the ways to use them are a relatively recent scientific discovery. The best way to think of stem cells is as “blank,” or “master cells.” Ordinarily, the cells in our body can only have replacements created by other similar cells. When we bleed or donate blood, that loss is replenished by our existing blood cells creating new blood cells. When we get cut or recover from a burn, the skin that grows there comes from skin cells reproducing new skin cells. A skin cell can’t create a brain cell, and a liver cell can’t create a heart cell.

This is where stem cells radically differ. Stem cells can be “overwritten” to become any cell they need to be. This is how an embryo developing in the mother’s womb can go from a collection of simple cells multiplying, into specialized cells for different organs like the brain, stomach, and eyes. In effect, we all start from stem cells, and then as we mature in our mother’s womb, those cells eventually specialize.

However, even after birth, we still have stem cells in us, just in smaller concentration. Stem cells are still present in the bone marrow. If required, these stem cells can be harvested, though of course, the procedure of collecting stem cells within the bone marrow is technical and extensive.

How Stem Cell Therapy Works

Stem cell therapy is a well-documented form of medical treatment for certain illnesses. Leukemia, which is a type of cancer that affects blood cells, has experienced dramatic success with this type of treatment, rather than more traditional methods, such as radio or chemotherapy. Stem cells have two benefits, growing into whatever cells are required, as well as encouraging the affected area to increase its production of replacement cells.

However, as with any introduction of a new element into the body, some compatibility is required. In the case of stem cells, either a person’s own stem cells, from bone marrow, or stem cells previously collected from birth, such as “cord blood,” which is found in the umbilical cord of the birth mother, and is rich in stem cells, are ideal for use.

Stem Cells & Autism

Stem cell treatment for autism is a relatively new method, but the results so far have been quite promising. Stem cells are administered either intravenously, usually through a major vein in the arm, or intrathecally, which require more precise injection into the spinal cord.

Because autism cases may be a mix of both physiological disorders and behavioral, not every child is suitable for this form of treatment. However, if a child’s speech issues, or violent behavior, for example, are related to a physical condition, then stem cell therapy to encourage the growth of new, healthy cells in problem areas can reduce these conditions.

It is important, however, to ensure that a proper diagnosis occurs. While stem cell therapy can generate promising results, there are no guarantees for every symptom of ASD. Some children may receive much more effective results from behavioral therapy, while others may require a regular prescription of medicine. Make sure to have your child properly evaluated by medical professionals first, before assuming stem cell therapy must be the answer.

27Jun

Autism, or Autism Spectrum Disorder as it is more accurately known today, can be caused by two major factors. The most common is genetic. In the same way that some illnesses or disorders can be passed along a family line, such as cystic fibrosis, or Down’s Syndrome, ASD functions the same way. ASD can “skip a generation,” or manifest as a very mild, higher functioning form of autism in one parent, but with the birth of the next generation, the ASD may be much more severe.

However, ASD is not only caused by genetics; there may be environmental factors at play too. While vaccines have already been ruled out as a cause of ASD, other contributing agents still pose risks. Low birth weight while the baby is growing, for example, may cause ASD, while hypoxia during childbirth, which means insufficient oxygen getting to the brain, can also lead to ASD in the baby.

This brings up the question, how do you know if a newborn has ASD? The sooner that ASD is diagnosed, the sooner concerned parents can start planning—and managing—ASD symptoms and getting treatments or therapies to help a child live a productive life. So is it possible to detect ASD in infants, and if so, how?

Lack Of Eye Contact

One of the “signature” behavioral symptoms of ASD manifests itself very early in children, and can even be detected in infancy. For many people with ASD, direct eye contact can be distressing, because it is overstimulating, providing too much information for the ASD patient to handle.

Whereas babies without ASD quickly learn to maintain eye contact in order to learn about the person they are interacting with, ASD infants will shun this. If you find that your baby momentarily maintains eye contact, and, upon realizing that eye contact has been made, avoids it, this may be an early indicator.

No Smiling

By the age of three, infants usually begin to develop rudimentary social skills, such as smiling to display pleasure, and indicate to adults that an experience was enjoyable and they would like a repeat of that experience. ASD infants, however, are much slower to learn this type of social signaling, either delaying it or in some cases, never learning it at all.

If your infant is not smiling or laughing by three months, this is not necessarily a positive indicator of ASD, but if it does run in the family, and it is accompanied by other symptoms, take note.

Poor Eye Tracking

The first “point of contact” for infants is the eyes, and under normal circumstances, infants will welcome visual input and always be hungry for it, actively engaging with sights, such as brightly colored toys, and tracking the movement.

For ASD infants, however, too much sensory input from the eyes may be distressing or overstimulating. If you present toys to your infant and move them around, and the infant only briefly registers the movement then refuses to watch further movements, this could be another indicator.

Few To No Noises

Infants will hear and attempt to imitate their parents as they speak, resulting in babbling as they exercise their voices and begin to form language skills. It’s not unusual for young babies to babble frequently, and even respond to speech with babbling.

Lack of traditional communication skills is another hallmark of ASD. An ASD child may be reluctant to engage in speaking or begin at first, then at some point, stop and regress. Some children may be slow to learn to verbalize, so don’t take a lack of it as positive confirmation that ASD is present unless there are other contributing factors.

Unresponsive

Repetition in verbalizing impacts on babies eventually, and at some point, the constant repetition of their name, paired with parental interactions, will cause them to associate the sound parents make with themselves, and they begin to understand that they have a name.

With ASD children, often, this association is never formed, or it is entirely ignored. If you find that your infant continues not to respond when called by name, file this way for further evaluation. On average, infants should be responding to their name by nine months at the latest.

No Conventional Social Interaction Or Anticipation

Once again, infants tend to make certain associations that they look forward to expressing quickly. Once infants are repeatedly picked up, for example, they may learn to raise their arms as a signal of interaction that they wish to be picked up. If you play games, such as “peek a boo,” they anticipate the game and smile or laugh in advance.

ASD infants will remain unresponsive to these social signals and not give them. Normal infant development will show signs of anticipation and interaction 6-9 months after birth. If your family has a history of autism, or you notice your child is showing many of these behaviors, think about bringing the child in for an ASD evaluation. The earlier you are informed about the situation, the better prepared you will be to manage it.




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