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Home Tag: "autism" (Page 2)

Tag: autism

1Dec

Autism Spectrum Disorder, or ASD for short, is an extremely complex condition. It is part behavioral, part neurological, and, to some degree, part organ-related. This overlap into many different areas of diagnosis would make the condition complicated enough, but then the behavioral aspect throws a major spanner in the works. ASD has a huge range of different behavioral symptoms, and many of these symptoms also vary in intensity, which is why the condition was ultimately classified as a “spectrum.”

Because of this, diagnosing and treating ASD has not always been accurate. ASD itself didn’t exist as a unique condition in medical textbooks until the 1980s. Before that, some of its symptoms were classified as distinct disorders, such as Asperger’s Syndrome, while others were completely misdiagnosed as mental illness, and some ASD patients were treated having schizophrenia.

Today, while medical science has a better understanding of ASD, that understanding is far from complete. Research and treatment for ASD are being done at hospitals, labs, and clinics all over the world. For some, one of the more promising chances for successful treatment is at an autism medical center in Tbilisi, Georgia. But why?

The ASD Puzzle

There is a massive range of both symptoms and intensity levels of symptoms in ASD. Some people with ASD require no treatment at all because their symptoms are so mild that their personality is regarded as “quirky and introverted” or “eccentric.” Some ASD patients speak in a monotone, like a robot. Others can’t tie their shoes, or eat food using utensils. Some can’t maintain eye contact when speaking to other people, while others must perform tasks in the exactly the same way, and maintain a strict routine, with any disruption causing anxiety, and even violence.

Because of this range on the spectrum, there are many different ways of addressing the treatment of ASD, but the one thing all treatments have in common is that they are not cures. Currently, there is no known cure for ASD. Once it is diagnosed, it’s a lifelong condition in the same fashion as heart disease or diabetes. But ASD, while currently incurable, is not untreatable. The symptoms themselves can be managed, even if the origin of those symptoms, the ASD itself, can’t be cured.

Autism Treatments In Tbilisi

This is where some international clinics, like those in Tbilisi, the capital city of the country of Georgia, hold some hope for families. Some forms of treatment for ASD require the prescription of medication, such as antipsychotics, for the more extreme behavioral displays. Other ASD children may benefit from behavioral therapy where they consciously learn to confront, overcome, and change their behavior so that a child who was once unable to look people in the eye eventually learns to do so.

However, there are other treatments, still on the cutting edge, that are yet to be performed widely around the world. Stem cell therapy for ASD is one of these treatments. And although stem cell therapy itself is a well-regarded treatment that is being researched for an ever-expanding range of different conditions, it is not a treatment that can be sought in the United States. At least, not for ASD.

How Stem Cell Therapy Works

Stem cell therapy, as the name implies, uses stem cells and transplants them into a patient. Stem cells must be cells that come either from the patient or from someone closely genetically related to the patient, such as a sibling. This is because, like an organ transplant, there are issues of compatibility, and the wrong stem cells will be rejected by the body.

There are two ways to harvest stem cells. The best stem cells, known as “pluripotent,” come from “cord blood,” a term that refers to the fluids left in the umbilical cord after birth. If a family has the foresight to request, that cord blood is preserved after a baby is born, that preserved sample can be harvested at a later date for stem cells. Otherwise, the less potent, but still viable stem cells located within a person’s bone marrow must be surgically harvested, which is a more invasive procedure.

Treating Autism

In the United States, stem cell therapy is currently only legal for treating blood-cancer illnesses like leukemia. While it is widely known that stem cell therapy is likely to be effective at treating many other conditions, such as Alzheimer’s, or ASD, treating these conditions is, for now, only legally allowed for research purposes in the USA.

However, a sufficiently experienced and advanced autism medical center in Tbilisi, Georgia, doesn’t have these same restrictions. Although the highest medical standards and experienced medical professionals are still used and observed here, the promising results of stem cell therapy for ASD aren’t restricted, and people who want to try treating their children for some ASD symptoms, such as hostility, or inattentiveness, can come to Georgia to get the treatment that the USA is still too cautious to allow.

20Nov

Autism, or ASD, as it is more accurately referred to these days, is a very complex condition. On the surface, it’s easy to call it a “behavioral disorder,” since the most common symptoms shown are those of behavior and not so much physical symptoms, such as pain or issues with specific organs. This doesn’t mean that ASD doesn’t have any physical symptoms at all, just that the bulk of the symptoms used for diagnosis tend to be actions displayed by someone with ASD rather than something strictly related to condition of organs.

However, one of the biggest challenges with ASD is how to treat it. ASD, unlike many disorders, has a huge range of different behavioral symptoms. It has so many, and at differing intensities, that for generations, some aspects and symptoms of ASD were thought to be entirely separate conditions, not all part of the same disorder. This is why, up until 1980s, ASD itself wasn’t even properly acknowledged as a distinct condition, and some people with ASD before this were even diagnosed as schizophrenic.

Today, there are many different diagnoses and approaches to treating ASD, and more and more knowledge is being discovered about this disorder. One thing that is definite—at least with today’s medical science—is that there is currently no known cure for ASD. The symptoms, however, can be managed, and stem cell transplants are one approach to managing the condition.

What Are Stem Cells?

Stem cells might also be thought of as “origin cells,” since they are most abundant during a critical period of a person’s life, as a baby, growing in a mother’s womb. In medical science, stem cells have the nickname “master cell” because, unlike other cells in the human body, they can grow into anything.

Under normal circumstances, when you grow more hair, that comes from hair cells. When you’re cut, and your skin heals, the new skin is formed from other skin cells. So after the birth, the cells that can reproduce in greater numbers can only copy themselves, a lung cell can’t start growing new brain cells. During pregnancy, however, one unspecialized, fertilized egg cell must divide and form new organs like kidneys, a skeleton, and a nervous system. It is stem cells, abundance during the pregnancy stage, that perform this task of differentiating themselves according to the “map” outlined by DNA between parents mixing at conception.

What Is A Stem Cell Transplant?

As you may have already guessed from the name, a stem cell transplant is a medical technique where stem cells are taken from one source and introduced into a new environment, namely a patient. This is a very effective and well-established medical procedure, though, in the United States, it is currently only legal and medically approved for one treatment, and that is fighting blood-related cancer like leukemia. Cancer can affect any part of the body, but the general effect is the same. “Mutant” cells that are defective start reproducing that defect in great numbers, eventually overwhelming the healthy cells.

Stem cells introduced into a leukemia patient can eventually replace the faulty blood cells that are replicating and create a new, stable system of healthy blood cells, restoring the balance to the body.

Where Do Stem Cells Come From?

For a stem cell transplant to work, there are two major sources, right after the delivery of a baby, and in the bone marrow. During pregnancy, a fertilized egg produces a huge volume of stem cells, more than actually required for a baby to grow, and these stem cells, like other fluids in the womb, are constantly being exchanged with other substances through the umbilical cord, which carries vital nutrients from the mother to the baby, and carries waste from the baby away.

Once the baby has been born, a significant volume of these “pluripotent” stem cells remain in the umbilical cord and placenta. This “cord blood,” if enough foresight is used, can be stored away, cryogenically preserved, and used at a later date with the child.

Stem cells are still available in smaller, less versatile numbers in the human body after birth. They are stored in the bone marrow. This means, to harvest these cells, that surgery is required to cut into some bone and harvest these cells.

How This Helps

While the research is still being done for the specific mechanisms of stem cell transplants and ASD, some promising results have already been seen in some patients. Issues like inattentiveness, or hostility show dramatic improvement in some ASD children after a stem cell transplant has occurred.

It’s important to note, however, that a stem cell transplant should not be the first or only solution that families arrive at. Different variants of ASD symptoms will require different approaches. Stem cell transplants can’t fix everything, nor should they be expected to, but they do show results in some cases. Other ASD patients may benefit from prescription medication or even behavioral therapy.

11Nov

Most people that start families will undergo a typical parental experience, watching the child grow up, and dealing with the usual social and educational concerns that everyone has about getting good grades, and properly socializing with others for positive interactions and relationships.

However, not every family is going to follow the average path. Some families may find that medical conditions have an impact on the development of a child. For some, these can be specific physical medical conditions such as deafness or blindness that change the way a child learns and interacts with the world. For others, it may be more behavioral disorders, such as Autism Spectrum Disorder, or ASD. Like all conditions, someone diagnosed with ASD benefits the most from specific, focused treatment. But what does that constitute for ASD? This is where understanding what it is, and what Autism Treatment Centers do comes into play.

What is Autism Spectrum Disorder?

Autism spectrum disorder, more commonly known as ASD, is a condition with both physical and behavioral symptoms, although it is the behavioral symptoms that are the most visible and often the most treated. Unlike other conditions, ASD doesn’t have a single set or group of symptoms but instead covers a huge range of different behavioral symptoms at differing intensities.

This is the reason that the disorder is referred to as being on a spectrum, and so are the people diagnosed with the condition. One person can have a very significant set of symptoms that is severe enough to warrant the use of medication and intensive therapy. Another person, however, can have only a handful of symptoms that are so mild that there’s no need for medical diagnosis, except to satisfy curiosity.

Fortunately, it’s possible to diagnose ASD very early in children. Because of the vast range of different behavioral symptoms that may be displayed, there are a variety of different methods, approaches, and even diagnostic tools that may be required for a proper treatment plan to be formulated. This is one of the reasons why an autism treatment center can be an important ally during the process.

Treating According To Need

ASD’s multitude of symptoms at different intensities means that there is no “one size fits all” treatment method that will work on every child, the way a vaccine works. Instead, the most important first step is an accurate, comprehensive diagnosis that lays out the specifics of a child’s ASD so that everyone knows which aspects must be addressed first. As one historical example, it wasn’t until the 1980s that ASD was even recognized as its own distinct medical condition. Some people with ASD were diagnosed as schizophrenic and were treated in that manner, even having anti-psychotics applied because the more severe cases of ASD responded to antipsychotic medication.

On the other hand, some people with ASD were diagnosed as having Asperger’s Syndrome, which is considered a milder, behavioral that sometimes does not even require medical or psychological treatment of any sort, resulting in “eccentric behavior” at its mildest. This means that it’s important to catalog the different behaviors and their intensities, and then come up with a treatment plan that addresses the individual.

Help From Centers

ASD is a condition that is managed. Unfortunately, medical science currently has no cure for this condition, though different approaches can help to address different symptoms. An Autism Treatment Center is one of the best ways for families to get the help they need in understanding how an ASD diagnosed child sees the world, and the best way to manage those symptoms to still live a productive life with the potential for education and self-advancement.

Depending on the diagnosis of a child, treatment methods will vary a lot. Some children diagnosed with very severe symptoms may require medication, such as antipsychotics, to be receptive to other forms of treatment. Other children may be recommended to undergo a regimen of behavioral therapy, consciously training them to overcome their symptoms, such as children learning to make eye contact while speaking with others, or waiting for others to finish speaking before giving out a reply.

In some cases, there may be medical treatments suggested for specific aspects of ASD. Some ASD symptoms are physical, such as the incidence of digestive/gastrointestinal conditions that have a higher occurrence rate in ASD patients. In other cases, more experimental forms of treatment may be suggested at other clinics, such as stem cell therapy. Stem cell therapy, while only approved for cancer-blood disorders in the USA, is now being offered in other countries to treat some symptoms of ASD. Hostility and attention-deficit disorders, for example, have shown promising results, through the use of stem cell therapy, but research into this form of treatment continues.

Ultimately, it is up to parents to get their children diagnosed and then decide what is the best course of action for a child’s welfare. An autism treatment center can be an important cornerstone of this.

6Nov

Autism, more accurately known today as Autism Spectrum Disorder, or ASD, is an extremely complex condition. One of the most challenging aspects of ASD is the fact that it has so many possible behavioral symptoms that for centuries, it wasn’t even recognized as a single condition, and different symptoms were thought to be completely separate, distinct disorders. In fact, it wasn’t even until the 1980s that ASD was formally recognized as a distinct medical condition. Before this, ASD was sometimes misdiagnosed as a form of schizophrenia, at least partly because some ASD symptoms responded to antipsychotic medication.

Today, the treatment of ASD is much more comprehensive, and there are many options, both medical and behavioral, to help ASD patients and their families to understand and manage the symptoms. But what is ASD? How do people exhibit ASD symptoms, and what causes this condition?

Not A Disease

First, it’s important to understand that ASD is not a disease that is caused by the transmission of bacteria or a virus. Unlike pneumonia or even something mild like a headache or an upset stomach, taking some prescription medication doesn’t make ASD go away. There is no cure for ASD. Once ASD is diagnosed, this is a lifelong condition that must be taken into account for a person’s daily life activities, just like the precautions that need to be taken for people with asthma, diabetes, or even geriatric conditions that come with aging, such as Alzheimer’s.

This means that ASD, like other medical conditions, can only have the symptoms managed, and this will be an ongoing, lifelong activity. While most medical conditions have physical symptoms, and ASD does have a few, the majority of ASD symptoms are behavioral. This means that, unlike typical medical conditions, symptom management may involve counseling and behavioral therapy, though administering some types of medication may also be part of the regimen.

Why It Happens

Unfortunately, the understanding that medical science currently has of ASD is far from complete. While it’s now widely acknowledged that ASD has a huge range of different symptoms, some of them are physical, but most behavioral, the exact reasons why ASD occurs are still not fully known. Medical experts now know how some people come to have ASD, but the reasons why it occurs are still being researched.

However, it is safe to say that there are three primary means by which someone may contract ASD, and vaccine transmission is not one of those delivery mechanisms.

Genetic

The most common form of ASD is transmission is through family lines. If a parent has been diagnosed as having the ASD condition, then this means giving birth to a child with ASD is a possibility. In such cases, it may be prudent to have infants evaluated for ASD, or to wait until parents notice familiar ASD characteristics then bring the child in for evaluation.

Pre-Natal

Another cause of ASD may be at the pre-natal stage. That is to say, the child may not be born with ASD, but, due to circumstances that occur while developing in the womb, may contract ASD during pregnancy, and then be born with the condition.

In this case, prenatal causes of ASD have been theorized to be diseases the mother may contract, especially in the early stages of pregnancy. Rubella, for example, when exposed to pregnant mice has resulted in a higher incidence of ASD in the mice that are subsequently born. In humans, it is suspected that the mother’s immune response to rubella, especially in the critical first eight weeks of pregnancy, may lead to ASD, as it also believed to be the cause of other behavior disorders like schizophrenia.

Post-Natal

It’s also theorized that there may be causes for ASD just before birth, during the birth process, or perhaps even shortly afterward. The results of definitive post-natal causes thus far, however, are inconclusive. For example, in numerous reports, it was found that the administration of vaccines to children was found to not have any impact on the formation of ASD.

However, one report was contrary to this, and, despite that report having been withdrawn on improper research, there is a general belief among uneducated parents who refuse to do follow up research that the one now withdrawn report is valid, despite the mountains of factual and statistical evidence to the contrary.

Get Professional Help

As with any other medical condition, it is important for people with no medical training to get a professional diagnosis from trained, experienced medical experts. ASD has a variety of different symptoms at different intensities, so the recommended approach for treatment is unique to each individual.

In some cases, ASD may be treated with behavioral therapy techniques, similar to psychological counseling. In other cases, medication may be advised. Some ASD is now being treated through the use of stem cell therapy, but you should always consult with a doctor first before deciding on what approach to take for dealing with ASD in a child.

19Sep

Autism, or autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as it is more properly referred to, is a growing concern for people all over the world. There’s always going to be some debate about whether or not autism is becoming more widespread, or whether what is happening is a greater awareness of ASD, and more accurate diagnoses occurring, versus the medical professionals misdiagnosing it frequently until now.

After all, it wasn’t until the 1980s that autism was even recognized as a distinct, unique medical condition. Before its appearance in American mental disorder classification systems and literature, ASD and its many different symptoms were often thought to be a form of schizophrenia. This means that until the 1980s, there’s no telling how many thousands or hundreds of thousands of people throughout history had ASD, but medical science didn’t realize it at the time.

Because serious study and understanding ASD is comparatively recent, there’s still a lot to learn about this condition. Moreover, without that complete understanding of autism, what it is and how it comes about, treating it is a challenge, especially with so many different treatment options available for different symptoms.

Now, however, we have a new form of treatment that has been getting some promising results. It’s known as stem cell therapy. But what many people want to know is can stem cells cure autism?

What Is A Stem Cell?

Stem cells are informally nicknamed by medical sciences “Master Cells.” The reason stem cells earned this nickname is because of their incredible versatility. Under normal conditions, if a person grows more hair after a shave, or heals skin after a cut, it is because the existing cells are capable of reproducing more of themselves. Hair cells grow more hair, and skin cells grow more skin. Cells from different sources can’t normally do this, which is why people don’t have liver cells turning into lung cells, or brain cells growing fingernails.

Stem cells, on the other hand, can do this. While it is an amazing piece of human biology, it is far from unusual, as this same process occurs in every pregnant mother during childbirth. A single fertilized egg cell must go from one unspecialized, undifferentiated cell to an entire baby, with distinct lungs, kidneys, eyes, a brain, and all the other highly specialized organs. Stem cells are what make this growth and specialization possible.

The Application Of Stem Cell Therapy

Stem cell therapy is currently only in FDA approved use for one type of medical treatment, and that is blood cancer, specifically leukemia. It was found that stem cells, when introduced into the malignant environment of blood cells reproducing incorrectly due to cancer, could reverse this process. As the stem cells converted over to healthy, normal blood cells, they could encourage the cancerous system to also reproduce proper blood cells, instead of the malignant, cancerous ones.

Because of this, stem cell therapy is now an effective form of cancer treatment, with far fewer side-effects for the patient than the more “scorched earth” approach of chemotherapy or radiation therapy. Both of these therapies kill cancerous cells—as well as any other cells in the area—with the hope that cancer has “burned out” and healthy cells will grow in their place.

Stem Cells Therapy’s Legal Status

For the moment in the United States, the Food & Drug Administration, or FDA has only given general legal approval to the use of stem cell therapy for leukemia treatment. For other disorders, stem cell therapy has not yet been given full approval.

This means, at least in the USA, while it is not criminal to administer stem cell therapy for other conditions, doctors are not performing a legal treatment either. Stem cell therapies for other conditions, such as autism are, however, legal in other countries, such as Panama, Mexico, and Georgia. This means that in these countries, treatment, in addition to further research are both ongoing. In the United States stem cell therapy for other conditions is only available for research purposes, though this may change at some point in the future.

Stem Cell Therapy For Autism

Because stem cells can replace—or create an environment—where the growth of healthy cells is once again possible, it was believed that some types of autism might benefit from stem cell therapy. ASD is a very complex disorder in that many of its symptoms are behavioral, such as introversion, repetitive motions, an insistence on routine, but these symptoms may have roots in physical conditions such as possible brain or neural disorders.

Stem cell therapy can help to manage some of these symptoms by replacing damaged cells with newer, healthier ones. However, it’s important for parents to realize that while this can help to reduce or manage some aspects of autism, it cannot cure ASD. And in some cases, behavioral therapy or other psychological approaches may have more profound, positive affects. Always get a thorough medical consultation before deciding that stem cell therapy is the best solution for ASD treatment.

15Sep

Autism, today more accurately referred to as autism spectrum disorder, or ASD has had a very long journey through medical science, and one that is still far from complete. While diseases such as measles have been understood for centuries, with clear documentation about their formation, infection, causes and cures, ASD is still a much more complex and mysterious condition.

It wasn’t until the 1980s that ASD was even acknowledged as a unique category. Before that, people with ASD symptoms were believed to have some varied symptoms of schizophrenia and were misdiagnosed as such, treated with antipsychotics and other medications. This was further complicated by the fact that some ASD symptoms do respond to anti-psychotic or anti-depressant medication, while others do not.

Today, however, we have a better understanding of ASD, but that understanding has only illustrated how complex the condition is, not how simple it would be to cure. With current medical technology, no cure for ASD exists, so the condition can only be managed through various forms of treatment.

One of these is stem cell therapy, a very recent development in ASD treatment. But what is this form of treatment? How does it work? And what can you do to ensure you get the possible chance at a successful treatment, with qualified medical professionals?

How Stem Cell Therapy Works

In normal medical circumstances, the human body, while resilient, can’t replace large scale damage to the body. A cut on the finger is small, and skin cells can easily reproduce in the numbers required for new skin to grow over a cut and regenerate, usually without even showing a scar. In the same way, when you get a hair cut, the cells in hair can easily reproduce to create more hair.

However, if you get into an accident that requires the amputation of a leg, or an arm, the bone, muscle, and nerve cells can’t reproduce in the numbers required to allow the limb to grow back. Many of these cells are too specialized to allow that kind of mass growth. Of course, this wasn’t always the case with your body.

When a baby is developing in the mother’s womb, it starts as a single fertilized egg cell. That cell then divides rapidly, to create more cells, which are known as stem cells. Stem cells are “blank cells” that can take on the role of any cell required, whether it is brain, heart, bone or lung. With enough stem cells, any part of the body can be regrown, which is how it is possible for babies to develop during pregnancy.

Stem Cell Therapy For Autism

Where stem cell therapy for ASD enters the equation is in helping to manage the symptoms. ASD is believed to have multiple causes at this point, from genetic, to pre-natal to post-natal, and as a result, curing it is not something medical science is capable of.

However, with stem cell therapy, an transfusion of “fresh” stem cells—ideally ones that have been collected from the birth mother of the child—can enter the system and grow into undamaged, “replacement” cells to help augment neural or brain development. There have already been promising results with ASD treatment, where recipients of stem cell therapy have shown improved behavior, reduced hostility, and even receptiveness to communication.

Treatment Limitations

However, especially in the United States, stem cell therapy, while proven to work, is only approved of by the Food & Drug Administration for use in general hospital treatment with cancer patients, specifically for blood-related cancer like leukemia. This is the one area where abundant research, documentation, and medical treatment have all been approved for general use.

This means that while administering stem cell therapy for conditions other than leukemia is not considered a criminal act, doctors who do are in a very risky legal area. As a result in the USA, stem cell therapy for ASD is not legally available, and people must go to other countries to receive such treatment.

The Trust Factor

There are other countries, with clinics that offer safe, legal stem cell therapy services for people interested in stem cell therapy for autism. In the Americas, countries like Panama and Mexico both have clinics, while countries like Georgia offer the same quality services in Europe.

However, it is important when considering stem cell therapy to make sure you choose safely and wisely. This is why it’s important to do your research. When you hear about a stem cell therapy clinic in Georgia, for example, don’t just immediately book an appointment. Instead, carefully research the organization, their qualifications, and above all, look at reviews. When people have had good results with a clinic, they will say so. Even more importantly, if a clinic doesn’t offer satisfactory service, it’s good to know in advance. Looking at reviews is one of your best ways to make the right choice.




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