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Home Tag: "treatment"

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19Jan

Autism Spectrum Disorder, better known clinically as ASD, has taken centuries to be properly recognized. In the past, some forms of ASD were misdiagnosed as schizophrenia because some ASD symptoms responded to the use of antipsychotic medication. Even when ASD was finally recognized as a distinct disorder, there were still issues with diagnosis due to the insistence on trying to fit all ASD patients into one of four categories, such as “high functioning Asperger’s Syndrome,” and then restrict treatment to whatever was recommended for that category.

Today, while the understanding of ASD is far from complete, there’s been much more progress and a better understanding of this condition. Unfortunately, one of the largest obstacles to fighting ASD remains, and that is, as with some other medical conditions, there is currently no cure available with the level of medical science available.

This doesn’t mean, however, that there’s no hope for people diagnosed with ASD. The spectrum and intensity of symptoms that make up ASD mean that while no cure exists, there are plenty of treatment options to overcome some issues of ASD. Behavioral therapy, for example, is one way for ASD patients to take control of their lives and train themselves to surpass the limitations that ASD may have imposed on them, such as difficulty in communicating.

Other new forms of treatment are in the wings, such as cord blood treatment. But what is it, and what does it bring to the table for those diagnosed with ASD?

What Is Cord Blood?

Cord blood is a generic term for umbilical cord fluids. These are the substances that are leftover after the birth of a child, that is no longer required in the mother’s body. While a child is growing in the womb, there is no direct eating or breathing through the mouth. Instead, all oxygen and nutrients are delivered “direct” to the baby through the umbilical cord, a literal lifeline that makes it possible for an infant to survive in the liquid environment of the womb without chewing on food, or drowning on fluid.

Aside from carrying nutrients, and carrying waste out, one of the most important substances contained in the mixture of cord blood is stem cells. Stem cells are a unique type of cell that only appear in large numbers during pregnancy. This is why, in modern medical facilities, after a child has been born, it’s common to request that the stem cells remaining in cord blood be harvested for future use. People, similar to organ transplants, can only accept stem cells with a high rate of compatibility, which means either the stem cells used during their growth in the womb or the stem cells of a close genetic relative, such as a sibling.

What Do Stem Cells Do?

Stem cells have, in medical science, earned the nickname “master cells” because they can do something no other human cell can do. Stem cells start “blank,” with no initial function, and can “reprogram” themselves to become any cell in the human body. This means that even heart cells, which normally do not reproduce once a person is born, can potentially heal if introduced to stem cells that can grow into heart cells.

Not all stem cells can do this. Cord blood contains this version of stem cells, known as “pluripotent.” After birth, humans no longer create this type of stem cell within themselves. A less versatile version is produced in bone marrow, but these stem cells confine themselves to becoming different types of blood cells, such as red, or white. Only the stem cells found in cord blood can take on the properties of any human cell.

What This Does For ASD

ASD has behavioral symptoms for the most part, but the underlying causes for those symptoms can be neurological. That is to say; there may be physical neural reasons for some of the behavior shown by children diagnosed with ASD.

This is where cord blood treatment comes in. Though ASD itself has no cure, some of the symptoms may be mitigated—or even removed—if there is a medical issue with the neural network or neural transmitters within a child. The introduction of stem cells into affected neural areas may encourage the growth of newer, uninfected nerve cells and neural transmitters.

This is how leukemia, a form of blood cancer, is already successfully treated through stem cell therapy. In those cases, the less versatile stem cells from bone marrow are usually employed, although since the goal is to replace cancerous blood cells that don’t reproduce properly with new, uninfected healthy ones, the desired outcome is still achieved.

For now, however, at least in the USA, stem cell therapy is only legally authorized for leukemia treatment. Cord blood treatment is being aggressively researched in other areas, including ASD treatment, and even incurable diseases like Alzheimer’s, but these treatments are unavailable to the public. Other countries, however, like Georgia, are offering these stem cell treatments, even if the USA is not.

13Nov

Autism Spectrum Disorder, more commonly referred to as ASD or autism, is a very complex condition. For the moment, no cure exists, so it fits into a class of other lifelong conditions, such as diabetes or asthma, where, once a diagnosis is confirmed, an ASD patient will manage those symptoms for the remainder of a lifetime.

However, unlike some conditions such as diabetes, ASD is not something that manifests later in life, whereas a person may not show symptoms of diabetes until adulthood, or even the senior years. ASD is always evident within a few months or years after birth. As a condition, ASD is one of the more challenging ones to both diagnose and treat because it has a huge range of symptoms. It wasn’t until the 1980s, when ASD was properly recognized by medical texts that some disorders, like Asperger’s Syndrome was finally recognized to be just ASD symptoms.

It’s partly because of this huge range of different symptoms that a range of different treatment options exists. One of them is stem cell therapy. But how does treatment for cancer have any relevance to ASD?

The Neurological Aspect

ASD’s specific causes are not yet fully understood. It’s known that is often a genetic component, since an adult diagnosed with ASD may give birth to children who also have ASD. However, there are pre-natal and possible post-natal factors, as well. A woman who contracts rubella during pregnancy can, as a side-effect of that, have a baby with ASD. Some medical experts suspect that even factors during, or after birth, such as insufficient oxygen at a critical phase, may also contribute to the contraction of ASD.

Because of these methods of transmission, it’s clear that while the chief symptoms of ASD are behavioral, such as not maintaining eye contact, an insistence on a specific routine, or even speaking in a monotone, like a robot, there is a definite medical cause, not psychological at the root of the condition.

For example, some ASD patients have explained the discomfort with looking someone directly in the eye as overstimulating, as if they see and experience more sensory information from doing this than other people. That would point to a differing in how the neural signals are being interpreted by the ASD patient, indicating that there may be a nerve cell factor at work in how ASD patients process sensory input and the resulting distinct behavior.

What Stem Cells Can Do

Stem cell therapy is a relatively new form of treatment, but it has some incredibly promising results for a wide variety of different conditions. A stem cell is a very special type of cell that medical science has nicknamed the “master cell.” It gets this nickname because, unlike other cells that can only make copies of themselves, stem cells can become any cell in the human body.

So while hair cells can only grow more hair, and skin cells can only heal cuts and abrasions, a stem cell can turn into a brain cell, a lung cell, a hair cell, a blood cell, or anything else. Stem cells are what make pregnancy possible, as a single, fertilized egg cell continues to divide and eventually specializes into the different organs that make up a baby.

How Therapy Works

Stem cell therapy is essentially a transplant of stem cells into a patient so that the stem cells can replace problematic cells. However, stem cells need to be compatible with the patient. The best stem cells, known as pluripotent, come from a child’s birth. During pregnancy, the mother’s body produces far more stem cells than are required, and these stem cells remain in the fluids in the umbilical cord, which is known as “cord blood.” This cord blood can, on request, be harvested and stored for later use and will be 100% compatible with a child, since they were instrumental in that child’s embryonic development.

If a child’s specific cord blood is not available, a close genetic relative, such as a younger sibling may still have pluripotent stem cells that are compatible, if the parents elected to have them stored. If neither of these options is available, less versatile stem cells can be harvested directly from a person’s bone marrow, but this is a surgical—and thus more invasive—procedure.

Once the stem cells are ready for use, they are injected into the area of concern, This can be intravenous, such as needle into a vein, or intrathecal, into the spinal cord. In both cases, however, the goal is the same, to introduce stem cells into a problem area so that healthier cells can grow.

International Considerations

Unfortunately, at least in the United States, the only legal form of stem cell therapy is for leukemia, a type of blood cancer. For parents that wish to treat their child with stem cell therapy for autism, they must visit other countries, such as Mexico, or Georgia, to have the procedure done legally, and with high-quality medical care and staff.

11Nov

Most people that start families will undergo a typical parental experience, watching the child grow up, and dealing with the usual social and educational concerns that everyone has about getting good grades, and properly socializing with others for positive interactions and relationships.

However, not every family is going to follow the average path. Some families may find that medical conditions have an impact on the development of a child. For some, these can be specific physical medical conditions such as deafness or blindness that change the way a child learns and interacts with the world. For others, it may be more behavioral disorders, such as Autism Spectrum Disorder, or ASD. Like all conditions, someone diagnosed with ASD benefits the most from specific, focused treatment. But what does that constitute for ASD? This is where understanding what it is, and what Autism Treatment Centers do comes into play.

What is Autism Spectrum Disorder?

Autism spectrum disorder, more commonly known as ASD, is a condition with both physical and behavioral symptoms, although it is the behavioral symptoms that are the most visible and often the most treated. Unlike other conditions, ASD doesn’t have a single set or group of symptoms but instead covers a huge range of different behavioral symptoms at differing intensities.

This is the reason that the disorder is referred to as being on a spectrum, and so are the people diagnosed with the condition. One person can have a very significant set of symptoms that is severe enough to warrant the use of medication and intensive therapy. Another person, however, can have only a handful of symptoms that are so mild that there’s no need for medical diagnosis, except to satisfy curiosity.

Fortunately, it’s possible to diagnose ASD very early in children. Because of the vast range of different behavioral symptoms that may be displayed, there are a variety of different methods, approaches, and even diagnostic tools that may be required for a proper treatment plan to be formulated. This is one of the reasons why an autism treatment center can be an important ally during the process.

Treating According To Need

ASD’s multitude of symptoms at different intensities means that there is no “one size fits all” treatment method that will work on every child, the way a vaccine works. Instead, the most important first step is an accurate, comprehensive diagnosis that lays out the specifics of a child’s ASD so that everyone knows which aspects must be addressed first. As one historical example, it wasn’t until the 1980s that ASD was even recognized as its own distinct medical condition. Some people with ASD were diagnosed as schizophrenic and were treated in that manner, even having anti-psychotics applied because the more severe cases of ASD responded to antipsychotic medication.

On the other hand, some people with ASD were diagnosed as having Asperger’s Syndrome, which is considered a milder, behavioral that sometimes does not even require medical or psychological treatment of any sort, resulting in “eccentric behavior” at its mildest. This means that it’s important to catalog the different behaviors and their intensities, and then come up with a treatment plan that addresses the individual.

Help From Centers

ASD is a condition that is managed. Unfortunately, medical science currently has no cure for this condition, though different approaches can help to address different symptoms. An Autism Treatment Center is one of the best ways for families to get the help they need in understanding how an ASD diagnosed child sees the world, and the best way to manage those symptoms to still live a productive life with the potential for education and self-advancement.

Depending on the diagnosis of a child, treatment methods will vary a lot. Some children diagnosed with very severe symptoms may require medication, such as antipsychotics, to be receptive to other forms of treatment. Other children may be recommended to undergo a regimen of behavioral therapy, consciously training them to overcome their symptoms, such as children learning to make eye contact while speaking with others, or waiting for others to finish speaking before giving out a reply.

In some cases, there may be medical treatments suggested for specific aspects of ASD. Some ASD symptoms are physical, such as the incidence of digestive/gastrointestinal conditions that have a higher occurrence rate in ASD patients. In other cases, more experimental forms of treatment may be suggested at other clinics, such as stem cell therapy. Stem cell therapy, while only approved for cancer-blood disorders in the USA, is now being offered in other countries to treat some symptoms of ASD. Hostility and attention-deficit disorders, for example, have shown promising results, through the use of stem cell therapy, but research into this form of treatment continues.

Ultimately, it is up to parents to get their children diagnosed and then decide what is the best course of action for a child’s welfare. An autism treatment center can be an important cornerstone of this.

19Sep

Autism, or autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as it is more properly referred to, is a growing concern for people all over the world. There’s always going to be some debate about whether or not autism is becoming more widespread, or whether what is happening is a greater awareness of ASD, and more accurate diagnoses occurring, versus the medical professionals misdiagnosing it frequently until now.

After all, it wasn’t until the 1980s that autism was even recognized as a distinct, unique medical condition. Before its appearance in American mental disorder classification systems and literature, ASD and its many different symptoms were often thought to be a form of schizophrenia. This means that until the 1980s, there’s no telling how many thousands or hundreds of thousands of people throughout history had ASD, but medical science didn’t realize it at the time.

Because serious study and understanding ASD is comparatively recent, there’s still a lot to learn about this condition. Moreover, without that complete understanding of autism, what it is and how it comes about, treating it is a challenge, especially with so many different treatment options available for different symptoms.

Now, however, we have a new form of treatment that has been getting some promising results. It’s known as stem cell therapy. But what many people want to know is can stem cells cure autism?

What Is A Stem Cell?

Stem cells are informally nicknamed by medical sciences “Master Cells.” The reason stem cells earned this nickname is because of their incredible versatility. Under normal conditions, if a person grows more hair after a shave, or heals skin after a cut, it is because the existing cells are capable of reproducing more of themselves. Hair cells grow more hair, and skin cells grow more skin. Cells from different sources can’t normally do this, which is why people don’t have liver cells turning into lung cells, or brain cells growing fingernails.

Stem cells, on the other hand, can do this. While it is an amazing piece of human biology, it is far from unusual, as this same process occurs in every pregnant mother during childbirth. A single fertilized egg cell must go from one unspecialized, undifferentiated cell to an entire baby, with distinct lungs, kidneys, eyes, a brain, and all the other highly specialized organs. Stem cells are what make this growth and specialization possible.

The Application Of Stem Cell Therapy

Stem cell therapy is currently only in FDA approved use for one type of medical treatment, and that is blood cancer, specifically leukemia. It was found that stem cells, when introduced into the malignant environment of blood cells reproducing incorrectly due to cancer, could reverse this process. As the stem cells converted over to healthy, normal blood cells, they could encourage the cancerous system to also reproduce proper blood cells, instead of the malignant, cancerous ones.

Because of this, stem cell therapy is now an effective form of cancer treatment, with far fewer side-effects for the patient than the more “scorched earth” approach of chemotherapy or radiation therapy. Both of these therapies kill cancerous cells—as well as any other cells in the area—with the hope that cancer has “burned out” and healthy cells will grow in their place.

Stem Cells Therapy’s Legal Status

For the moment in the United States, the Food & Drug Administration, or FDA has only given general legal approval to the use of stem cell therapy for leukemia treatment. For other disorders, stem cell therapy has not yet been given full approval.

This means, at least in the USA, while it is not criminal to administer stem cell therapy for other conditions, doctors are not performing a legal treatment either. Stem cell therapies for other conditions, such as autism are, however, legal in other countries, such as Panama, Mexico, and Georgia. This means that in these countries, treatment, in addition to further research are both ongoing. In the United States stem cell therapy for other conditions is only available for research purposes, though this may change at some point in the future.

Stem Cell Therapy For Autism

Because stem cells can replace—or create an environment—where the growth of healthy cells is once again possible, it was believed that some types of autism might benefit from stem cell therapy. ASD is a very complex disorder in that many of its symptoms are behavioral, such as introversion, repetitive motions, an insistence on routine, but these symptoms may have roots in physical conditions such as possible brain or neural disorders.

Stem cell therapy can help to manage some of these symptoms by replacing damaged cells with newer, healthier ones. However, it’s important for parents to realize that while this can help to reduce or manage some aspects of autism, it cannot cure ASD. And in some cases, behavioral therapy or other psychological approaches may have more profound, positive affects. Always get a thorough medical consultation before deciding that stem cell therapy is the best solution for ASD treatment.

28Aug

21st-century medicine has a much more informed and nuanced view of the condition known as Autism Spectrum Disorder or ASD. It’s hard to believe that just a few years ago, there was a more rigid categorization of ASD behavior that didn’t adequately assess how unique and organic the condition is. It’s even more shocking to think that as recently as the early 1980s, ASD as a condition didn’t even exist; young children that today would be diagnosed as having ASD would, in the past, have been labeled schizophrenic.

It is that variety of different behavioral symptoms and different intensities for those symptoms that have made treating ASD a challenge. Some people diagnosed as having ASD evince only mild symptoms, and, in the past, were regarded as having “eccentric” or “unusual” personalities. On the extreme end, others with ASD can’t manage the most basic social interactions or physical activities, such as maintaining eye contact, or tying shoes, and require extensive treatment to integrate them into society.

It’s because of this that a huge arsenal of different treatments for ASD exists, from behavioral therapies to medication. A recent development has been umbilical cord blood for use in a technique known as stem cell therapy. But what is this, and why is it now being looked at as a treatment for ASD?

The Stem Cell Key

To understand the role of umbilical cord blood treatment for autism, it’s important to understand the key component of this treatment; stem cells. The stem cell also has the nickname “master cell,” because it starts as a “blank cell,” but, when put into the right conditions, it is capable of reproducing itself as any other cell in the body. This is an enormously rare capability in the human body, especially an adult human body.

However, at one point in a human’s development, that is exactly what happens, and this occurs during pregnancy. When a woman becomes pregnant, life starts as just one cell, an egg cell, that is fertilized by a sperm cell. From that single cell, more cells grow and divide, and these are stem cells. However, as those stem cells divide, they follow the new “DNA blueprint” formed by the fertilized egg, and eventually, those blank cells specialize and grow into the brain, lung, heart and bone cells, among many others, that are required to develop into a fully formed human being.

The Cord Blood Treasure

Once humans are born, a much smaller number of stem cells are still available in limited areas of the body, such as bone marrow. But shortly after a baby is born, the remaining stem cells that went unused are still “viable” and compatible with that child, no matter how old he or she gets. It is “cord blood,” the nickname for umbilical cord blood, where these stem cells are most abundant, and after a baby is born, there is usually an option for the parents to have that remaining cord blood harvested and preserved.

This is important because it was discovered through the treatment known as stem cell therapy that stem cells, when reintroduced into a compatible body, can grow themselves into the cells that are required to remain healthy. The most promising results of this were seen in the treatment of cancer, specifically leukemia. Stem cell therapy has already shown results in effectively fighting cancer, as stem cells introduced into cancerous bone marrow or lymphatic systems can replace the cancerous cells with normal, healthy ones that reproduce as intended.

While some portions of the human body, such as bone marrow itself, can retain stem cells, these stem cells are not as “versatile” as cord blood, which can be used just about anywhere. Special medical techniques are required to increase the usefulness of bone marrow stem cells, and, because of their recessed location, harvesting such stem cells requires a lot of effort.

The Hope For ASD

Once the success in leukemia was documented and went into widespread use, umbilical cord blood treatment has now been explored with other illnesses that were previously thought to be untreatable since replacing cells with new, healthy ones, was not always an option. Alzheimer’s, for example is now being explored with stem cell therapy.

For people diagnosed with ASD, there are also promising results. While Alzheimer’s and ASD treatments are still in the experimental phase, unlike leukemia, which has already been endorsed in the USA as a viable treatment, that doesn’t mean that results are invalid, merely that proper documentation and recognition has not yet been admitted into formal medical studies.

However, what is already seen is that umbilical cord treatment may be helping with physical ASD symptoms such as inflammation, and even with behavioral symptoms, like reducing violent and hostile behavior in patients. So while umbilical cord treatment is only officially recognized as recommended treatment for certain types of cancer, the broad range of uses for stem cells mean that conditions like ASD also seem to be benefiting, and with every person that undergoes treatment, more data and results are available both to the public and the medical, scientific community.

5Aug

Autism is today, more accurately referred to as Autism Spectrum Disorder, or ASD. The reason that the terminology has changed is that a newer, more nuanced understanding of ASD has brought to light that evaluating, diagnosing and treating ASD isn’t as simple as checking off a list of symptoms, and deciding this ASD child belongs one category, while another ASD child falls into a different category. The range of symptoms for ASD is very broad, and the intensity or severity of these individual symptoms can also have a wide range. One child, for example, may occasionally let the eyes stray during a conversation, while another cannot maintain any eye contact whatsoever when interacting with people.

The complexity of ASD means that while many of the symptoms are expressed as behavioral acts, there can be different reasons for this. This characteristic of a neurophysiological condition entangling different symptoms means that there are many different approaches to treating those symptoms. In some cases, behavioral therapy the most efficient way to address a symptom, where an ASD child learns new behaviors through conscious training and self-regulation.

However, in other cases, some form of typical medical treatment may be required. The prescription of certain medications or even the administration of certain medical procedures may be more appropriate. But what kind of medical treatments are used to manage ASD? Here’s a list of a few of the techniques, depending on the needs of the patient.

Tricyclics

Because ASD patients can have difficulty interacting with others, this can be isolating and even alienating, resulting in negative emotional experiences like loneliness and, ultimately, depression. In the case of ASD patients, depression can make managing obsessive-compulsive disorder behaviors even more difficult, reinforcing a reliance on repetitive behaviors that can have a negative long term impact. Tricyclics are a specific type of anti-depressant that can ease more severe depression symptoms, allowing ASD patients to lessen their reliance on OCD patterns, take more affirmative actions and more productive behaviors and routines.

Stimulants

Hyperactivity is a behavioral trait where there is so much energy and distraction to do something that focuses on a single point or task can be difficult. Surprisingly, sometimes the best way to counteract the effects of hyperactivity is to prescribe stimulants. ASD patients, if correctly prescribed, can respond to stimulants by being able to maintain and hold focus for longer periods, decreasing the more distracting effects of hyperactivity, and learning to concentrate and regulate behavior in certain situations and settings.

Selective Seratonin Reuptake Inhibitors

Because ASD is a neurophysiological disorder, there can be a combination of behaviors developed as a result of the environment, and behaviors that may have roots in more hormonal or glandular issues. The application os Selective Seratonin Reuptake Inhibitors, or SSRIs can be useful here. SSRIs may help to reduce anxiety, depression, tantrums, irritability and even hostile behavior. SSRIs work by restoring possible imbalances in the neurochemical system, allowing for more normalized reactions and behavior.

Anti-Anxiety Medication

People diagnosed with ASD may be prone to very large, intense emotional reactions that are beyond their control. Some ASD children, as one example, experience an upset and anxiety when a routine is interrupted that is far out of proportion to what that routine is, such as not stacking blocks using a specific order of colors. This can cause irritation as a milder symptom, or range to panic and even anxiety attacks. Anti-anxiety medication can reduce this to help manage and overcome these ASD symptoms to learn to let go of certain unproductive routines.

Anticonvulsants

In some cases, one of the symptoms of ASD can be seizures, similar to, or caused by epilepsy. About one-third of ASD patients suffer from seizures, so anticonvulsants can be an important part of preventing ASD patients from coming to harm as a result of seizures.

Anti-Psychotics

Ironically, before ASD was recognized as a unique disorder, it was often misdiagnosed as schizophrenia. One of the reasons for this was that some people with ASD would respond positively to the use of anti-psychotic medication. Risperidone, as one example, has been proven o manage chronic irritability in patients between the ages of 5-16 diagnosed with ASD.

Anti-psychotics can manage aggressive or violent emotions and behavior, help decrease hyperactivity, and even improve ASD patients expressing withdrawn behavior. It can be an effective way to give ASD patients more self-control and protect others in the same environment.

Stem Cell Therapy

A relatively recent addition to medical treatments available is stem cell therapy. These were originally used in cancer treatments, to help patients fight against leukemia, but with success in cancer treatments, more and more applications of stem cell therapy are being explored, and ASD treatment is one of those avenues.

While it’s still not fully documented, stem cell therapy has shown results in decreasing aggression, improving language skills, and even reducing physical symptoms like inflammation. It can be useful in helping the ASD diagnosed to reduce disruptive behavior and give them a chance to learn more positive behaviors through behavioral therapy.




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