Saturday, November 28, 2009

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

What is Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, OCD, is an anxiety disorder and is characterized by recurrent, unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and/or repetitive behaviors (compulsions). Repetitive behaviors such as handwashing, counting, checking, or cleaning are often performed with the hope of preventing obsessive thoughts or making them go away. Performing these so-called "rituals," however, provides only temporary relief, and not performing them markedly increases anxiety.

Signs & Symptoms

People with OCD may be plagued by persistent, unwelcome thoughts or images, or by the urgent need to engage in certain rituals. They may be obsessed with germs or dirt, and wash their hands over and over. They may be filled with doubt and feel the need to check things repeatedly.

Treatment

Effective treatments for obsessive-compulsive disorder are available, and research is yielding new, improved therapies that can help most people with OCD and other anxiety disorders lead productive, fulfilling lives.

Surgery for OCD: Do docs know all the brain’s circuits?
BENEDICT CAREY , NYT News Service 28 November 2009, 12:01am IST

One was a middle-aged man who refused to get into the shower. The other was a teenager who was afraid to get out.

The man, Leonard, a writer living outside Chicago, found himself completely unable to wash himself or brush his teeth. The teenager, Ross, growing up in a suburb of New York, had become so terrified of germs that he would regularly shower for seven hours. Each received a diagnosis of severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD, and for years neither felt comfortable enough to leave the house.

Today, two years after surgery, Ross is 21 and in college. But Leonard who had surgery in 1995, said “There was no change at all”.

The great promise of neuroscience at the end of the last century was that it would revolutionize the treatment of psychiatric problems. But the first real application of advanced brain science is not novel at all. It is a precise, sophisticated version of an old and controversial approach: psychosurgery, in which doctors operate directly on the brain.

In the last decade or so, more than 500 people have undergone brain surgery for problems like depression, anxiety, Tourette’s syndrome, even obesity, most as a part of medical studies. The results have been encouraging, and this year, for the first time since frontal lobotomy fell into disrepute in the 1950s, the Food and Drug Administration approved one of the surgical techniques for some cases of OCD.

But with that hope comes risk. For all the progress that has been made, some psychiatrists and medical ethicists say, doctors still do not know much about the circuits they are tampering with, and the results are unpredictable: some people improve, others feel little or nothing, and an unlucky few actually get worse. In US, one patient was left unable to feed or care for herself after botched surgery.

In one procedure, called a cingulotomy, doctors drill into the skull and thread wires into an area called the anterior cingulate. There they pinpoint and destroy pinches of tissue that lie along a circuit in each hemisphere that connects deeper, emotional centers of the brain to areas of the frontal cortex, where conscious planning is centered. This circuit appears to be hyperactive in people with severe OCD, and imaging studies suggest that the surgery quiets that activity.

In another operation, called a capsulotomy, surgeons go deeper, into an area called the internal capsule, and burn out spots in a circuit also thought to be overactive.

BABY FOOD RECIPES

BABY FOOD RECIPES - CHICKEN HEARTS APPLE
Baby food recipes

Material:
250 grams of chicken liver
2 apples, peeled, seeded, chopped
1 carrot, peeled and cut into pieces
3 pieces potatoes, peeled and cut into pieces
2 stalks celery, chopped
3 tablespoons green peas

Directions:
1. Cook all ingredients until cooked.
2. Drain and puree (or chopped finely for children ages 8 months and up)

BABY FOOD RECIPES - FISH APPLE
Baby food recipes

Material:
2 pieces of fish fillets
2 apples, peeled, cut into pieces

Directions:
1. Boil the ingredients until cooked. Drain and puree.

Note:
For children 8 months, the food should not be crushed but only finely chopped. It is good to stimulate the growth of teeth and to train the muscles of the mouth and gums to bite.

BABY FOOD RECIPES - CARAPPEAR
Baby food recipes

Material:
2 stalks carrots, peeled, cut into pieces
2 apples, peeled, cut into pieces
2 pieces of pear, peeled and cut into pieces

Directions:
1. Kl Boil carrots for 10 minutes, then amsukkan apple and pear. Cook until soft.
2. Drain and puree (or chopped finely for children ages 8 months and up)

BABY FOOD RECIPES - steamed fish
Baby food recipes

Material:
1 snapper fillet (or other fish species, according to taste)

Directions:
1. Steam the fish until cooked and then mashed.
2. Can be mixed with pureed vegetables (carrots, broccoli, etc.).

BABY FOOD RECIPES - Broccoli POTATO
Baby food recipes

Material:
7 broccoli florets, discarding the stem
2 potatoes, peeled, cut into pieces
Chicken broth / meat taste (only boiled water chicken / meat, without salt or other seasonings)

Directions:
1. Steam the broccoli and potatoes until cooked.
2. Blend the two ingredients with the processor / blender.
3. Give the broth to taste.

BABY FOOD RECIPES - VEGETABLE INTERFERENCE
Baby food recipes

Material:
1 carrot, peeled, cut into pieces
1 piece of potato, peeled, cut into pieces
2 tablespoons green peas (can be replaced other green vegetables, eg broccoli,
zuchini, celery, etc.)
Chicken broth / meat taste (only boiled water chicken / meat, without garammaupun other seasonings)

Directions:
1. Boiled / steamed until cooked all the ingredients and puree.
2. Give the chicken broth / meat taste.

BABY FOOD RECIPES - CHICKEN SOUP
Baby food recipes

Material:
1 piece of chicken thighs, remove skin, cut meat into pieces (bones were not removed)
1 stalk celery, chopped
2 potatoes, peeled, cut into pieces
1 stick carrot, peeled, cut into pieces
2 tablespoons green peas
500 ml water

Directions:
1. Cook all ingredients until cooked.
2. Discard the chicken bones, then puree all ingredients

BABY FOOD RECIPES - puree CARROT
Baby food recipes

Material:
2 medium carrots, peeled
Boiled water to taste

Directions:
1. Steam the carrots until tender then puree. Add water as needed.
2. Presentation: Give the carrot puree as single or mixed foods
with pulp POTATO / SWEET POTATOES porridge.

BABY FOOD RECIPES - pea puree
Baby food recipes

Material:
250 grams of fresh or frozen peas

Directions:
1. Boil peas until cooked and then mashed.
2. Strain the rough skin so do not take part inedible.
3. Presentation: Give peas puree as a single food or
mixed with porridge POTATO / SWEET POTATOES porridge.