4 Troubled Teens Blog

Two new major studies found that being physically abused as a child significantly increases the risk for migraine headaches as a teenager or adult.

• Dr. Esme Fuller-Thomson of the University of Toronto analyzed data from a 2005 health survey of 13,000 Canadians.
  
• Seven percent of the studied youth reported having been physically abused as children.
• Among that group, 18 percent had migraines as adults, compared to 9 percent in the survey who had not been physically abused.
  
• Dr. Fuller-Thomson's team looked at other reasons for migraines, such as parental unemployment, drinking or drug use and found that even with such histories, there still was a 36 percent greater risk of migraine among adults who had been physically abused as children.

The second study was from Dr. Jong Ling Fuh and his colleagues at Taipei Veterans General Hospital in Taiwan, who looked at headache symptoms and histories of physical abuse among 4000 children ages 13 to 15-years-old.

• In this study, 30 percent of the teenagers who had been physically abused had migraines compared to 21% of teens who had not been abused.
  
• The more frequent the abuse, the greater the risk of migraine.

Both studies appeared in the journal Headache.

The media is awash in stories about alleged sexual abuse by clergymen. Victims continue to come forward from communities around the world. However, in a March 27 article in The Oregonian, columnist Susan Nielsen notes that this may be just the tip of the iceberg:

At least one in five girls and one in 10 boys experiences unwanted sexual touching or other sex abuse, based on federal data and research cited by the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Most of the bad actors in these cases are not priests or pastors. They are stepfathers, family friends, fathers and neighbors.

The majority are never held accountable.

"I think of that as the hidden iceberg," says legal scholar Marci Hamilton, a national authority on child abuse at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and the author of Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children. ...

Traditionally, about 90 percent of victims dont speak out, and the reasons are as messy and common as the crimes themselves. It can take decades for victims to shake off enough of the shame to stop feeling responsible.

"Denial and survival play a huge part in the reason why victims of abuse 'wait' to come forward," or never say a word, says Kristi Kernal of Beaverton, a co-founder and board member of OAASIS, Oregon Abuse Advocates and Survivors in Service.

A juvenile probation officer who says she was "troublemaker" in her younger days has been honored for her efforts to help troubled teens lead more productive and satisfying lives.

Andrea Thompson's story was featured in a March 24 honoluluadvertiser.com article by Joan Conrow:

"I tell my kids, I actually know more than they think," Thompson said. "When I was in high school, I was one troublemaker. I was a huge troublemaker. The difference is I never got arrested. I tell them that even if they're in trouble now, it doesn't always have to be like this. It all comes down to choice."

Thompson, who recently won the "Spirit of the Judiciary Award" for her outstanding job performance, does more than serve as a good role model. She also tries to get the 100 or so juveniles assigned to her back on the right track.

"I can't protect everyone or help everyone, but you have to try and do the best job possible," she said. "It's kind of a thankless job, but for me, it's rewarding, because I know with some kids, I've made a difference."

Women who use methamphetamine when they are pregnant are putting their babies at risk for structural abnormal abnormalities in the brain, according to a new study from the University of California in Los Angeles.

Researchers had trouble finding women who used methamphetamine but did not combine it with alcohol.

"About half the women who say they use meth during pregnancy also use alcohol," said Professor Elizabeth Sowell, author of the study, "so isolating the effects of meth on the developing brain was difficult."

• Dr. Sowell and her colleagues performed brain scans on 61 children, average age 11 years old.
  
• Thirteen had been exposed to alcohol only, 21 had pre-natal exposure to methamphetamine and alcohol, and 27 were exposed to neither.
  
• Dr. Sowell found that brain regions in the children exposed to methamphetamine were similarly damaged as those in the alcohol exposed children, and in some areas they were smaller or larger.

"The tragedy is that all these developmental problems are 100 percent avoidable," said Dr. Sowell, writing in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Diagnosing a child with "severe mood dysregulation" or "temper dysregulation with dysphoria" may be a better idea than diagnosing them with bipolar disorder, according to an article in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health.

If agreed upon, these terms would replace bipolar disorder in the new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual used by physicians to diagnose and treat mental disease.

"Physicians do not know exactly what is wrong with these children or how to treat it," the authors wrote. "Facing up to these limitations could lead to better treatment recommendations and more accurate long-term prognosis."

Even children as young as two and three years old displaying severe mood swings and violent temper tantrums are being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a disease that physicians formerly believed began in late adolescence.

Health insurance companies can demand certain diagnoses such as bipolar disorder in order to pay for treatment.

Dr. Herbert Hendin believes that measuring the intensity of a person's emotion can determine whether that person is at high risk of attempting suicide. Using a set of nine questions which are collectively called the Affective States Questionnaire, medical professionals can more accurately assess suicide risk, New York's Journal News reported:

"Hendin said his method can detect with greater accuracy than ever before the subtle indicators of suicidal behavior, with fewer false positives than other assessment tools. The tool was even more accurate when applied to patients who displayed risk factors such as substance abuse and poor functioning on the job or in relationships, Hendin said."

Hendin's study involved surveying 283 veterans who were both inpatients and outpatients at the Michael De Bakey VA Medical Center in Houston. He has found that patients on the verge of attempting suicide have a lower tolerance for intense emotions, yet average more than three times more intense emotional episodes than do non-suicidal patients.

A new study from The Netherlands found an association between depression and obesity: depression increases a person's risk for obesity, and obesity increases a person's risk for depression.

Dr. Floriana Luppino of the Leiden University Medical Center and her colleagues went through 15 previous studies involving 58,745 participants that examined the relationship between depression and obesity or being overweight.

"We found bi-directional associations between depression and obesity," Dr. Luppino said. "Obese persons had a 55 percent increase of developing depression over time. Depressed persons had a 58 person increased risk of becoming obese. The association between depression and obesity was stronger than the association between depression and overweight."

The association was also stronger among Americans than Europeans, and stronger for people who have been diagnosed with depression compared to those with depressive symptoms. Dr. Luppino said she believes that weight gain may be a late consequence of depression, so medical professionals should monitor depressive patients for weight gain, and obese patients for symptoms of depression.

This study appeared in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

The percentage of teenagers reporting that they experienced bullying, assaults, and other forms of victimization dropped between 2003 and 2008, according to a new study funded by the United States Department of Justice. The researchers believe that anti-bullying programs in schools were behind the decreases.

• Dr. David Finkelhor and his colleagues at the University of New Hampshire's Crimes against Children Research Center went through surveys filled out by children ages 2 to 17 years old in 2003 and again in 2008.
  
• The researcher found that the percent of children reporting bullying went from 22 percent to 15 percent, and the rate of those reporting assaults declined from 45 percent to 38 percent in that period.
  
• The study found declines in sexual assaults and emotional abuse by caretakers, but slight increases in robberies targeting children, children witnessing violence among family members, and dating violence.

The Olweus Bullying Prevention Program has been used in several thousand American schools. The program involves training staff members to deal with bullying immediately when they observe it. Much of decline in bullying occurred in low income schools using such programs.

"The decline is not happening everywhere," said Marlene Snyder of Clemson University's Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life and director of development for Olweus. "It is in schools where adults really understand how detrimental this conduct can be and have made a conscious effort to bring the numbers down."

The Finkelhor study appeared in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

Well-meaning advertisements designed to stop teenage drinking may backfire and make them drink more, according to a new study from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.

• Professor Adam Duhachek and his colleagues studied 1,200 undergraduates who saw two ads against drinking.
  
• The first one depicted a person vomiting after drinking, and the second was about how drinking can adversely affect loved ones.
  
• The participants who felt the most guilty after looking at the ads told researchers they were more likely to binge drink in the coming year.

Dr. Duhachek called the phenomenon "defensive processing," which occurs when a person reacts negatively to messages that provoke feelings of guilt or shame.

Groups such as the National Institute of Health and the Centers for Disease Control frequently develop public service announcements aimed against unprotected sex, drug use, drinking, smoking, and other risky teenage behaviors. Dr. Duhachek's study has implications for the contents of these messages.

The Pinellas County School district in Florida identified 1,916 homeless students in February. In February of last year, 1,315 homeless students were identified. That's a 60 percent increase.

"Many homeless students live in shelters, motels or are forced to live with friends and other family members after being displaced. Some girls, and male students, too, actually live in makeshift camps along the wooden areas of major roads an in cars and trucks." [Source: Pinellas Park Beacon]

A representative of PACE, a private organization that works with at-risk youth, told the Beacon that the rise in teen homelessness is due in large part to the troubled economy.

Monterey County, California residents are all too familiar with the tragic results of teen drinking and driving. In the early morning hours of Feb. 20, five teens were seriously injured in a car accident cause by the mixing of alcohol and automobiles.

This latest accident prompted a stern editorial from the Monterey County Herald:

We have lost tolerance for parents who have given in to the notion that "they're going to drink no matter what we do."

Many parents -- too many -- have even chosen to provide their teens with alcohol and a place to drink it under the theory that at least they will know where the kids are. ...

Teens don't need cool parents. What they do need is full-fledged parents, not friends, who are willing to play the roles of enforcer, spy, traffic cop, detective, judge, jury and, if necessary, jailer. ...

Teens will always act like teens. It is time for their parents to act like parents.

The American Psychiatric Association is proposing changes to its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The Association is asking for help from psychiatrists and the public to help define mental diseases for the DSM-5, the first new edition in 10 years.

The following are among the proposed changes:

• "Substance abuse" and "substance dependence" would become "addiction and related disorders," including "substance use disorders," such as "alcohol use disorder" and "heroin use disorder."
  
• "Behavioral addictions" would include gambling, but not addictions to sex or the Internet.
• Young children now diagnosed with bipolar disorder could instead be diagnosed with "temper dysregulation with dysphoria," which would include behavioral and mood problems.
• Binge eating would be recognized as an eating disorder.

DSM-5 is slated to be published in 2013.

A state-run Florida program is receiving praise for effectively keeping troubled teens out of the juvenile court system. The Child in Need of Services program works with kids ages 10 to 17 who are deemed to be troubled, and to have the potential to commit crimes.

"The state says about 85 percent of those who spend time at one of its shelters do not commit a crime within six months of being released," the Associated Press reported. "For those with less severe issues who receive nonresidential counseling, the programs success rate is about 95 percent."

The program is said to save millions in taxpayer money by keeping kids out of the court system and out of prison.