Teagan is a sweet, 12 year old boy, the light of my life, my eternal entertainment, and the best thing that ever happened to us.
He is diagnosed with High-Functioning Autism (Pervasive Developmental Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified [PDD-NOS]), Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD), Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), Separation Anxiety Disorder, Depression, and Epilepsy, which is probably actually Musicogenic Epilespy, we just have been unable to have it tested successfully. Basically, the neurologists have no idea what causes his episodes.
He is diagnosed with High-Functioning Autism (Pervasive Developmental Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified [PDD-NOS]), Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD), Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), Separation Anxiety Disorder, Depression, and Epilepsy, which is probably actually Musicogenic Epilespy, we just have been unable to have it tested successfully. Basically, the neurologists have no idea what causes his episodes.
Autism has a strong genetic basis, although the genetics of autism are complex and it is unclear whether ASD is explained more by rare mutations, or by rare combinations of common genetic variants. In rare cases, autism is strongly associated with agents that cause birth defects. Controversies surround other proposed environmental causes, such as heavy metals, pesticides or childhood vaccines; the vaccine hypotheses are biologically implausible and lack convincing scientific evidence. The prevalence of autism is about 1–2 per 1,000 people worldwide; however, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports approximately 9 per 1,000 children in the United States are diagnosed with ASD. The number of people diagnosed with autism has increased dramatically since the 1980s, partly due to changes in diagnostic practice; the question of whether actual prevalence has increased is unresolved.
Parents usually notice signs in the first two years of their child's life. The signs usually develop gradually, but some autistic children first develop more normally and then regress. Early behavioral or cognitive intervention can help autistic children gain self-care, social, and communication skills. Although there is no known cure, there have been reported cases of children who recovered. Not many children with autism live independently after reaching adulthood, though some become successful. An autistic culture has developed, with some individuals seeking a cure and others believing autism should be accepted as a difference and not treated as a disorder.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism)
PERVASIVE DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDER - NOT OTHERWISE SPECIFIED (PDD-NOS): A pervasive developmental disorder (PDD)/autism spectrum disorder (ASD). PDD-NOS is one of five forms of Autism Spectrum Disorders. PDD-NOS is often referred to as atypical autism.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDD-NOS)
ATTENTION-DEFICIT HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER (ADHD): A developmental disorder. It is primarily characterized by "the co-existence of attentional problems and hyperactivity, with each behavior occurring infrequently alone" and symptoms starting before seven years of age.
ADHD is the most commonly studied and diagnosed psychiatric disorder in children, affecting about 3 to 5 percent of children globally and diagnosed in about 2 to 16 percent of school aged children. It is a chronic disorder with 30 to 50 percent of those individuals diagnosed in childhood continuing to have symptoms into adulthood. Adolescents and adults with ADHD tend to develop coping mechanisms to compensate for some or all of their impairments. It is estimated that 4.7 percent of American adults live with ADHD. Standardized rating scales such as WHO's Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale can be used for ADHD screening and assessment of the disorder’s symptoms severity.
ADHD is diagnosed two to four times more frequently in boys than in girls, though studies suggest this discrepancy may be partially due to subjective bias of referring teachers. ADHD management usually involves some combination of medications, behavior modifications, lifestyle changes, and counseling. Its symptoms can be difficult to differentiate from other disorders, increasing the likelihood that the diagnosis of ADHD will be missed. Additionally, most clinicians have not received formal training in the assessment and treatment of ADHD, particularly in adult patients.
ADHD and its diagnosis and treatment have been considered controversial since the 1970s. The controversies have involved clinicians, teachers, policymakers, parents and the media. Topics include the actuality of the disorder, its causes, and the use of stimulant medications in its treatment. Most healthcare providers accept that ADHD is a genuine disorder with debate in the scientific community centering mainly on how it is diagnosed and treated. The American Medical Association concluded in 1998 that the diagnostic criteria for ADHD are based on extensive research and, if applied appropriately, lead to the diagnosis with high reliability.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention-deficit_hyperactivity_disorder)
OPPOSITIONAL DEFIANT DISORDER (ODD): A diagnosis described by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) as an ongoing pattern of disobedient, hostile and defiant behavior toward authority figures which goes beyond the bounds of normal childhood behavior. People who have it may appear very stubborn and angry.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppositional_defiant_disorder)
CENTRAL AUDITORY PROCESSING DISORDER (CAPD): Also known as Auditory Processing Disorder, is an umbrella term for a variety of disorders that affect the way the brain processes auditory information. It is not a sensory (inner ear) hearing impairment; individuals with APD usually have normal peripheral hearing ability. However, they cannot process the information they hear in the same way as others do, which leads to difficulties in recognizing and interpreting sounds, especially the sounds composing speech.
CENTRAL AUDITORY PROCESSING DISORDER (CAPD): Also known as Auditory Processing Disorder, is an umbrella term for a variety of disorders that affect the way the brain processes auditory information. It is not a sensory (inner ear) hearing impairment; individuals with APD usually have normal peripheral hearing ability. However, they cannot process the information they hear in the same way as others do, which leads to difficulties in recognizing and interpreting sounds, especially the sounds composing speech.
APD can affect both children and adults. Approximately 2-3% of children and 17-20% of adults have this disorder. Males are two times more likely to be affected by the disorder than females.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_auditory_processing_disorder)
SENSORY PROCESSING DISORDER (SPD): A neurological disorder causing difficulties with taking in, processing and responding to sensory information about the environment and from within the own body (visual, auditory, tactile, olfaction, gustatory, vestibular and proprioception).
For those with SPD, sensory information may be sensed and perceived in a way that is different from most other people. Unlike blindness or deafness, sensory information can be received by people with SPD, the difference is that information is often registered, interpreted and processed differently by the brain. The result can be unusual ways of responding or behaving, finding things harder to do. Difficulties may typically present as difficulties planning and organising, problems with doing the activities of everyday life (self care, work and leisure activities), and for some with extreme sensitivity, sensory input may result in extreme avoidance of activities, agitation, distress, fear or confusion.
The term SPD is now often used (though not without controversy) instead of the earlier term sensory integration dysfunction which was originally used by occupational therapist A. Jean Ayres as part of her theory that deficits in the processing and interpretation of sensation from the body and the environment could lead to sensorimotor and learning problems in children. The theory is widely acknowledged, but also has generated tremendous controversy. Some state that sensory processing disorder is a distinct diagnosis, while others argue that differences in sensory responsiveness are features of other diagnoses. SPD is not recognized in any standard medical manuals such as the ICD-10 or the DSM-IV-TR. The committee that prepares the DSM-5 has requested that additional studies are done before the disorder can be recognized.
On the other hand, SPD is an accepted diagnosis in Stanley Greenspan’s Diagnostic Manual for Infancy and Early Childhood and as Regulation Disorders of Sensory Processing part of the The Zero to Three’s Diagnostic Classification.
SPD is often associated with a range of neurological, psychiatric, behavioral and language disorders.
There is no known cure; however, there are many treatments available.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_processing_disorder)
SEPARATION ANXIETY DISORDER: A psychological condition in which an individual experiences excessive anxiety regarding separation from home or from people to whom the individual has a strong emotional attachment (like a father, mother, grandparents, and brothers or sisters). Separation Anxiety Disorder (SAD), is characterized by significant and recurrent amounts of worry upon (or anticipation of) separation from a child or adolescent's home or from those to whom the child or adolescent is attached.
Those suffering from SAD may worry about losing their parents and/or getting lost or kidnapped. They often refuse to go to certain places (e.g., school) because of fears of separation, or become extremely fearful when they are left alone without their parents. These children and adolescents may also refuse to sleep alone, experience nightmares about separation, or experience various physical complaints (e.g., body-aches, nausea) when separated from their parents. Separation anxiety may cause significant impairment in important areas of functioning, (e.g., academic and social). The duration of this problem must last for at least four weeks and must present itself before the child is 18 years of age.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_anxiety_disorder)
DEPRESSION: One of the most commonly diagnosed psychiatric disorders and is being diagnosed in increasing numbers in various segments of the population worldwide. Depression in the United States alone affects 17.6 million Americans each year or 1 in 6 people. Depressed patients are at increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and suicide. Within the next twenty years depression is expected to become the second leading cause of disability worldwide and the leading cause in high-income nations, including the United States. In approximately 75% of completed suicides the individuals had seen a physician within the prior year before their death, 45%-66% within the prior month. Approximately 33% - 41% of those who completed suicide had contact with mental health services in the prior year, 20% within the prior month.
There are many psychiatric and medical conditions that may mimic some or all of the symptoms of depression, or may occur comorbid to it. A disorder either psychiatric or medical that shares symptoms and characteristics of another disorder, and may be the true cause of the presenting symptoms is known as a differential diagnosis.
Many psychiatric disorders such as depression are diagnosed by allied health professionals with little or no medical training, and are made on the basis of presenting symptoms without proper consideration of the underlying cause, adequate screening of differential diagnoses is often not conducted. According to one study "non-medical mental health care providers may be at increased risk of not recognizing masked medical illnesses in their patients."
Misdiagnosis or missed diagnoses may lead to lack of treatment or ineffective and potentially harmful treatment which may worsen the underlying causative disorder. A conservative estimate is that 10% of all psychological symptoms may be due to medical reasons, with the results of one study suggesting that about 50% of individuals with a serious mental illness "have general medical conditions that are largely undiagnosed and untreated and may cause or exacerbate psychiatric symptoms."
In a case of misdiagnosed depression recounted in Newsweek, a writer received treatment for depression for years; during the last 10 years of her depression the symptoms worsened, resulting in multiple suicide attempts and psychiatric hospitalizations. When an MRI finally was performed it showed the presence of a tumor. She was however told by a neurologist that it was benign. After a worsening of symptoms, upon the second opinion of another neurologist, the tumor was removed. After the surgery she no longer suffered from "depression".
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depression_(differential_diagnoses)
EPILEPSY: (from the Ancient Greek ἐπιληψία (epilēpsía) — "seizure") is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by seizures. These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or hypersynchronous neuronal activity in the brain. About 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, and nearly two out of every three new cases are discovered in developing countries. Epilepsy is more likely to occur in young children, or people over the age of 65 years; however, it can occur to anyone at any time. As a consequence of brain surgery, epileptic seizures may occur in recovering patients.
Epilepsy is usually controlled, but not cured, with medication. However, over 30% of people with epilepsy do not have seizure control even with the best available medications. Surgery may be considered in difficult cases. Not all epilepsy syndromes are lifelong – some forms are confined to particular stages of childhood. Epilepsy should not be understood as a single disorder, but rather as syndromic with vastly divergent symptoms but all involving episodic abnormal electrical activity in the brain.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epilepsy)
MUSICOGENIC EPILEPSY: Reflex epilepsy induced by music reflex epilepsy - a form of epilepsy in which attacks are induced by peripheral stimulation
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/musicogenic+epilepsy)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_auditory_processing_disorder)
SENSORY PROCESSING DISORDER (SPD): A neurological disorder causing difficulties with taking in, processing and responding to sensory information about the environment and from within the own body (visual, auditory, tactile, olfaction, gustatory, vestibular and proprioception).
For those with SPD, sensory information may be sensed and perceived in a way that is different from most other people. Unlike blindness or deafness, sensory information can be received by people with SPD, the difference is that information is often registered, interpreted and processed differently by the brain. The result can be unusual ways of responding or behaving, finding things harder to do. Difficulties may typically present as difficulties planning and organising, problems with doing the activities of everyday life (self care, work and leisure activities), and for some with extreme sensitivity, sensory input may result in extreme avoidance of activities, agitation, distress, fear or confusion.
The term SPD is now often used (though not without controversy) instead of the earlier term sensory integration dysfunction which was originally used by occupational therapist A. Jean Ayres as part of her theory that deficits in the processing and interpretation of sensation from the body and the environment could lead to sensorimotor and learning problems in children. The theory is widely acknowledged, but also has generated tremendous controversy. Some state that sensory processing disorder is a distinct diagnosis, while others argue that differences in sensory responsiveness are features of other diagnoses. SPD is not recognized in any standard medical manuals such as the ICD-10 or the DSM-IV-TR. The committee that prepares the DSM-5 has requested that additional studies are done before the disorder can be recognized.
On the other hand, SPD is an accepted diagnosis in Stanley Greenspan’s Diagnostic Manual for Infancy and Early Childhood and as Regulation Disorders of Sensory Processing part of the The Zero to Three’s Diagnostic Classification.
SPD is often associated with a range of neurological, psychiatric, behavioral and language disorders.
There is no known cure; however, there are many treatments available.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_processing_disorder)
SEPARATION ANXIETY DISORDER: A psychological condition in which an individual experiences excessive anxiety regarding separation from home or from people to whom the individual has a strong emotional attachment (like a father, mother, grandparents, and brothers or sisters). Separation Anxiety Disorder (SAD), is characterized by significant and recurrent amounts of worry upon (or anticipation of) separation from a child or adolescent's home or from those to whom the child or adolescent is attached.
Those suffering from SAD may worry about losing their parents and/or getting lost or kidnapped. They often refuse to go to certain places (e.g., school) because of fears of separation, or become extremely fearful when they are left alone without their parents. These children and adolescents may also refuse to sleep alone, experience nightmares about separation, or experience various physical complaints (e.g., body-aches, nausea) when separated from their parents. Separation anxiety may cause significant impairment in important areas of functioning, (e.g., academic and social). The duration of this problem must last for at least four weeks and must present itself before the child is 18 years of age.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_anxiety_disorder)
DEPRESSION: One of the most commonly diagnosed psychiatric disorders and is being diagnosed in increasing numbers in various segments of the population worldwide. Depression in the United States alone affects 17.6 million Americans each year or 1 in 6 people. Depressed patients are at increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and suicide. Within the next twenty years depression is expected to become the second leading cause of disability worldwide and the leading cause in high-income nations, including the United States. In approximately 75% of completed suicides the individuals had seen a physician within the prior year before their death, 45%-66% within the prior month. Approximately 33% - 41% of those who completed suicide had contact with mental health services in the prior year, 20% within the prior month.
There are many psychiatric and medical conditions that may mimic some or all of the symptoms of depression, or may occur comorbid to it. A disorder either psychiatric or medical that shares symptoms and characteristics of another disorder, and may be the true cause of the presenting symptoms is known as a differential diagnosis.
Many psychiatric disorders such as depression are diagnosed by allied health professionals with little or no medical training, and are made on the basis of presenting symptoms without proper consideration of the underlying cause, adequate screening of differential diagnoses is often not conducted. According to one study "non-medical mental health care providers may be at increased risk of not recognizing masked medical illnesses in their patients."
Misdiagnosis or missed diagnoses may lead to lack of treatment or ineffective and potentially harmful treatment which may worsen the underlying causative disorder. A conservative estimate is that 10% of all psychological symptoms may be due to medical reasons, with the results of one study suggesting that about 50% of individuals with a serious mental illness "have general medical conditions that are largely undiagnosed and untreated and may cause or exacerbate psychiatric symptoms."
In a case of misdiagnosed depression recounted in Newsweek, a writer received treatment for depression for years; during the last 10 years of her depression the symptoms worsened, resulting in multiple suicide attempts and psychiatric hospitalizations. When an MRI finally was performed it showed the presence of a tumor. She was however told by a neurologist that it was benign. After a worsening of symptoms, upon the second opinion of another neurologist, the tumor was removed. After the surgery she no longer suffered from "depression".
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depression_(differential_diagnoses)
EPILEPSY: (from the Ancient Greek ἐπιληψία (epilēpsía) — "seizure") is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by seizures. These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or hypersynchronous neuronal activity in the brain. About 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, and nearly two out of every three new cases are discovered in developing countries. Epilepsy is more likely to occur in young children, or people over the age of 65 years; however, it can occur to anyone at any time. As a consequence of brain surgery, epileptic seizures may occur in recovering patients.
Epilepsy is usually controlled, but not cured, with medication. However, over 30% of people with epilepsy do not have seizure control even with the best available medications. Surgery may be considered in difficult cases. Not all epilepsy syndromes are lifelong – some forms are confined to particular stages of childhood. Epilepsy should not be understood as a single disorder, but rather as syndromic with vastly divergent symptoms but all involving episodic abnormal electrical activity in the brain.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epilepsy)
MUSICOGENIC EPILEPSY: Reflex epilepsy induced by music reflex epilepsy - a form of epilepsy in which attacks are induced by peripheral stimulation
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/musicogenic+epilepsy)
