Medical DSM-V plans to drop Asperger's, it's just Autism with severity

[nobahar]

I don't know a great deal about this area, but even in Nursing School I didn't like Psychiatry/Psychology and felt that it was/is too 'soft' of a science with too much subjective data being used to come up with these rules and guidelines which must be adhered to in the clinical setting. Even speaking to the other Medical Residents, PA's etc, it always astounded me how hand wavy the diagnosis process seems to be.

I saw this TED talk the other day and it astounds me that these types of tools are still not the mainstream tools used to evaluate patients with developmental delays/mental health disorders etc. Instead the whole field is based on people's opinions of observed behaviors.

http://www.ted.com/talks/aditi_shankardass_a_second_opinion_on_learning_disorders.html

Could you some up the 'types of tools', I'm interested to know but don't want to watch the whole talk!

 

[Yanick]

In a quick summary. They took kids who were diagnosed as autistic or developmentally delayed and hooked them up to an EEG and found that many of the children were not really autistic but were having seizures (probably simple partial seizures, not the type most people associate with seizures). These seizures actually mimicked the symptoms of autism and the kids were labeled and treated as such. A couple of months of seizure meds and the kids are in regular classes in school, karate classes etc. I think she mentions that something like (don't quote me on the exact number) 50% of the children diagnosed as autistic, really have this type of seizure disorder which is absolutely treatable.

The talk doesn't get any deeper than that really, its really more of a plea by the speaker to get this info out there (IMO). Check it out, its only 7 minutes long.

 

[nismaratwork]

In a quick summary. They took kids who were diagnosed as autistic or developmentally delayed and hooked them up to an EEG and found that many of the children were not really autistic but were having seizures (probably simple partial seizures, not the type most people associate with seizures). These seizures actually mimicked the symptoms of autism and the kids were labeled and treated as such. A couple of months of seizure meds and the kids are in regular classes in school, karate classes etc. I think she mentions that something like (don't quote me on the exact number) 50% of the children diagnosed as autistic, really have this type of seizure disorder which is absolutely treatable.

The talk doesn't get any deeper than that really, its really more of a plea by the speaker to get this info out there (IMO). Check it out, its only 7 minutes long.

The softness of Medicine and Psychology isn't a big problem when the people involved are aware of the limitations, and take steps to ameliorate the dangers inherent in misdiagnosis. You need to accept that art and practice as well as the science of these disciplines, and that means something less than absolute confidence in areas such as neurobiology (barring a giant tumor or the like). Too few people do this, and so we have over-diagnosis, misdiagnosis, and a public that is about as functional as a pithed frog in terms of being able to recognize these issues.

 

[bobze]

The softness of Medicine and Psychology isn't a big problem when the people involved are aware of the limitations, and take steps to ameliorate the dangers inherent in misdiagnosis. You need to accept that art and practice as well as the science of these disciplines, and that means something less than absolute confidence in areas such as neurobiology (barring a giant tumor or the like). Too few people do this, and so we have over-diagnosis, misdiagnosis, and a public that is about as functional as a pithed frog in terms of being able to recognize these issues.

And let's not forget that we live in a country (we'll I actually don't know what country you live in ) where years of poor doctor-patient relationships and communication have driven patients to seek medical knowledge and results from people like the "caped-crusader of autism"...Jenny MaCarthy...Forget medical school, I want my advice from someone who's hosted an MTV show!

 

[mugaliens]

There are a few things in the DSM-IV-TR which I think are pure bunk.

The DSM-5 plans call for changes to aspergers, bipolar, personality disorder, PSD, schizophrenia, and somatoform disorder. Unfortunately, none of the proposed changes involve removing the bunk.

Amazingly, the DSM-5 committe had to sign non-disclosure agreements, thus shoving the entire process into secrecy! No transparency, no opportunity to redress before it goes to press. Furthermore, 70% of the members have direct ties to the industry, raising severe questions of bias.