Health, Medicine and Human Development
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Edited by:
Health is a key component of human development, growth and quality of life. The Health, Medicine and Human Development book series aim to provide a public forum for book publications from a multidisciplinary group of researchers, practitioners and clinicians for an international professional forum interested in the broad spectrum of health, medicine and human development. We welcome research on a wide variety of substantive areas that will promote and impact healthy human development including prevention, intervention and care also among people in vulnerable conditions.
The abuse of drugs and chemicals has become a problematic public health dilemma for the world's population and one that must be dealt with by parents, societies, clinicians, researchers, and even countries in the world. This book discusses the complex neurobiology that underlies drug addiction and reveals how these illicit chemicals disrupt central nervous system neurotransmission involving such neurotransmitters as serotonin, dopamine, and others. This manual reviews current understanding in drug interactions with neurotransmitter systems, neuroimmune signaling, current research on reward circuitry, and current medications used to treat drug addiction. It also discusses related topics such as drug addiction in females, co-morbid conditions, drug addiction in minority populations, prenatal drug exposure and others. The book covers new drugs of the 21st century and discusses such controversial topics as legalization of drug use. It also provides internet resources, treatment facilities by state, and parent support organizations. The importance of prevention of drug abuse is a key theme of the book.
Psychiatric disorders in adolescents are an important social problem which is relevant to almost all healthcare professionals. According to the results of The National Comorbidity Survey-Adolescent Supplement (NCS-A), the lifetime prevalence of anxiety, behavior, mood, and substance use disorders among adolescents was 31.9%, 19.1%, 14.3%, and 11.4%, respectively. Approximately 40% of participants in this survey with one class of disorder also met criteria for another class of lifetime disorder. Comorbidity is increasingly recognized as a key feature of mental disorders among adolescents. Female adolescents are more likely than males to have mood and anxiety disorders, but less likely to have behavioral and substance use disorders.
Regretfully, medical professionals are not sufficiently trained about adolescent psychiatric disorders. For example, primary care providers correctly identify less than a fourth of youth with a depressive or anxiety disorder. Also, many clinicians underestimate the importance of the problem of adolescent psychiatric illnesses and suicidal behavior. Lack of skilled medical providers impedes the delivery of needed services to adolescents with mental health issues. This coupled with a lag in the ability of primary health care services to incorporate psychiatric interventions, and a failure of public health initiatives to pay attention to adolescent mental health problems has led to continuing gaps in care over decades despite the public pronouncements of needs.
In this book you will find relevant information for health professionals, since we believe that the mental health of adolescents is essential for sustaining healthy and productive societies.
Primary care clinicians are called on to care for adolescents in a time with increasing pharmacologic agents that are available in the management of these patients. The emphasis in this book is on the current pharmacologic treatment of common medical disorders in adolescents. Selected topics of practical relevance in adolescent medicine are covered. The goal of this book is to provide a succinct and practical guide specifically written for practicing physicians and allied health professionals who work with adolescents.
Primary care clinicians are called on to care for adolescents in a time with increasing pharmacologic agents that are available in the management of these patients. The emphasis in this book is on the current pharmacologic treatment of common medical disorders in adolescents. Selected topics of practical relevance in adolescent medicine are covered. The goal of this book is to provide a succinct and practical guide specifically written for practicing physicians and allied health professionals who work with adolescents.
Fibromyalgia is a syndrome of wide spread pain that is known from all parts of the world. An aspect of the syndrome of fibromyalgia is fluctuation as in onset of pain, variation in the level of symptoms, time off from pain and recovery from pain and other symptoms. The analysis of these fluctuations might create a basis for solid suggestions regarding the nature of the syn-drome itself. E.g. the pain level is well known to vary with mental and physical load including exposure to cold. Simultaneously, fibromyalgia has been found to mean an altered balance in the autonomic nervous system. In the first section of the book a developmental stage or life before fibromyalgia is covered. Intra- and interpersonal patterns based on narrations of the afflicted are pictured. Identified patterns are psychometrically examined and environmental as well as psychobiological patterns are accounted for. In the mid-section of the book life with fibromyalgia is scrutinized including biomarkers. Patterns regarding variation in the level of pain, gaps in fibromyalgia pain and environmental factors influencing these gaps are related. The effect on life, symptoms and defense measures is elucidated from the angle of mental load. The last sections portrait psychological and environmental influences concerning recovery, but especially the striking phenomenon of recovery being scarce. Special attention is paid to cognitive-emotional functioning, the need to target dissociation and environmental influences on maintenance.
Psychodermatology is a relatively new field in evolution and thus, there is a comparative paucity of information in general. However, when it comes to children and adolescents there is a complete vacuum of information as no other book has aimed to specifically address the psychodermatological issues facing this particular population. For assessment, diagnosis, comprehensive treatment of children with psychodermatologic conditions and establishing a relationship between skin and psyche, there is a lack of clear and relevant clinical information about these complex disorders. The complexity of these disorders is related to lack of understanding in genetic, embryonic, physiologic, neuroimmunologic, neurocutaneous, stress-related neuromodulation, and psychosomatic interconnections.
This book presents a clinically relevant approach to the management of psychodermatologic issues encountered in normal practice. Various classifications and major categories that are discussed include psychophysiologic disorders, psychiatric conditions with dermatologic manifestations, dermatologic disorders predisposing to psychiatric disorders, systemic diseases with psychodermatological manifestations, and special issues in management of psychocutaneous disorders in children and adolescents.
Just a few decades ago, children born with significant congenital anomalies or genetic and metabolic diseases perished at an early age and very few survived into their teens and even less into adulthood. Congenital heart disease, major errors in metabolism, cancer, cystic fibrosis and many other major diseases were fatal. Because of that many physicians in adult primary care did not have the opportunity to see patients with these problems and thus unable to learn how to care for them.
In this book, we have recruited highly qualified and experienced physicians to compile what is to the best of our knowledge, the first book dealing entirely with the issue of children's diseases in adults. Our goal is to provide a resource for all health care providers in order to help with caring for such adult patients. We believe that it will be valuable to all health care providers who provide care to adults with children's diseases. To our knowledge, there is no such resource available for practitioners which will make this book desirable.
Youth gambling represents a potentially serious public policy and health issue. Nevertheless, the rise in youth gambling issues and problems in the global context is not matched with a parallel increase in research on adolescent gambling. As such, there is an urgent need to conduct more studies on adolescent gambling behaviour. Recently significant advances in the knowledge of the risk factors associated with adolescent problems has emerged. This book addresses issues related to prevalence, assessment, prevention and treatment of youth gambling problems as well as concerns related to technological changes associated with youth problem gambling.
