Parental conflict may negatively affect children by disrupting their sleep
For years, researchers have known that children who grow up in homes with high levels of conflict tend to have behavior and learning problems. But they didn’t know why.
Now a new study published in the January/February 2006 issue of the journal Child Development finds parental conflict may negatively affect children by disrupting their sleep.
Researchers from Auburn University in Alabama and Brown University in Providence, R.I., assessed children’s sleep in 54 healthy 8- and 9-year-old children, along with parental conflict from both the child and parental viewpoint. None of the children had any previously diagnosed sleep disorders, and their parents experienced conflict levels in the normal range.
Strokes in Children Need to Be Recognized Quickly
Who would think a seemingly healthy teenager would suffer a stroke? Certainly not 13-year-old Colin Quinn, of Exton, Pa., who suddenly found he couldn’t get into the family car as he was leaving a guitar lesson. Colin was unable to move the left side of his body.
Fortunately, Colin’s parents acted quickly, calling an ambulance and having him taken to a pediatric hospital that was prepared to assess and treat this sudden event. The medical staff diagnosed it as a stroke-an interruption in blood flow within the brain. Today, two years later, Colin still has lingering weakness in his left arm and other aftereffects, but has largely recovered.
“Although usually thought of as afflicting only elderly patients, strokes may occur as early as infancy,” said pediatric neurologist Rebecca Ichord, M.D., who treated Colin at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “Stroke needs to be considered by first-line pediatric caregivers who encounter a patient with suspicious neurological symptoms, such as difficulty walking or using an arm.”
More physical activity does not lower risk of colon cancer
A prospective cohort study of 31,783 American women has found no significant association between levels of physical activity and colon cancer incidence.
The study, published online February 17, 2006 in International Journal of Cancer, the official journal of the International Union Against Cancer (UICC).
Alternating drugs best for lowering fever in kids
Alternating between acetaminophen (in painkillers such as Tylenol) and ibuprofen (for example, Advil) is better than sticking with either agent alone at bringing down a fever in a young child, a study shows.
The study involved 464 children, between 6 and 36 months of age, with a rectal temperature of at least 38.4 degrees Celsius who were randomized to receive acetaminophen (12.5 mg/kg per dose every 6 hours), ibuprofen (5 mg/kg per dose every 8 hours), or alternating doses of each drug (every 4 hours) for 3 days.
Treatment with the alternating regimen provided many benefits over the two types of single therapy, Dr. E. Michael Sarrell, from Tel Aviv University, and colleagues report in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.
Impact of parental behavior on children’s future behavior
How parents handle everyday marital conflicts has a significant effect on how secure their children feel, which, in turn, significantly affects their future emotional adjustment.
This finding, from researchers at the universities of Notre Dame, Rochester (NY) and Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., was published in the January/February 2006 issue of the journal Child Development. It provides powerful new evidence regarding the impact of parental behavior on children’s future behavior.
Child’s popularity may predict good reading skills
How are you first grader’s social skills? If his calendar is jammed with play dates and the phone rings off the hook, say a silent thanks -your child’s popularity may predict good reading skills by the third grade. That’s the finding from a study published in the January/February 2006 issue of the journal Child Development.
The study, from researchers from Stanford University, also finds the opposite - that children with low reading skills in first and third grade are more likely to have relatively high aggressive behavior in third and fifth grades.
The researchers chose to explore this question in light of the fact that the social and academic realms in school are inextricably connected. “Children’s social behavior can promote or undermine their learning,” explains lead author Sarah Miles, a Ph.D. student at Stanford University, “and their academic performance may have implications for their social behavior.”
Cause of ongoing pain elucidated
Scientists in the UK, searching for the cause behind ongoing spontaneous pain, have found evidence that it’s the undamaged nerve fibers that cause the pain, not those that are damaged by injury or disease.
Ongoing pain is characterized by a burning or sharp stabbing or shooting pain that can occur spontaneously after nerve injury. Unlike “evoked” pain caused, for example, by hitting your thumb with a hammer, ongoing pain frequently reduces quality of life and is difficult to treat with currently available painkillers.
Genetics of human muscular dystrophy
Various forms of human muscular dystrophy result from mutations in genes encoding proteins of the nuclear envelope. A new paper in the February 15th issue of G&D reveals how.
Ten human hereditary laminopathies, including Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy (EDMD), are associated with mutations in the LMNA gene that codes for the nuclear filament proteins, lamins A and C. Dr. Brain Kennedy and colleagues at the University of Washington have used a mouse model of EDMD to elucidate the mechanism by which altered expression of A-type lamins causes progressive muscular degeneration.
Major Alzheimer’s discovery
A team from the Faculty of Medicine at Universiti Laval and the research centre at CHUQ (Centre hospitalier universitaire de Quibec) has discovered a natural defence mechanism that the body deploys to combat nerve cell degeneration observed in persons with Alzheimer’s disease (AD).
Investigators Alain R. Simard, Denis Soulet, Genevieve Gowing, Jean-Pierre Julien and Serge Rivest describe this major discovery in the February 16th issue of the scientific journal Neuron.
