Special Needs Feeders

While I was working on the breastfeeding section in our book, I came across the link below that has several different "Special Needs Feeders" for babies that need help with feeding. We had to use the SNS with my brother when he was little. I thought I'd post the link up incase anyone was interested in it.


http://www.medela.com/NewFiles/specialtyfdg.html

Too Many Babies Take Anti-Reflux Drugs

http://children.webmd.com/news/20071105/too-many-babies-take-anti-reflux-drugs

Too Many Babies Take Anti-Reflux Drugs

Study Shows Some Infants Get Treated for GERD Unnecessarily

By Salynn Boyles
WebMD Medical News

Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

Nov. 5, 2007 -- Too many babies who don't need anti-reflux drugs are being treated with them for normal spitting up and vomiting, new research suggests.

When 44 infants with persistent regurgitation were evaluated for gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), only eight met the accepted diagnostic criteria for the condition, even though all but two were already on anti-reflux medications.

Pediatric gastroenterologist Vikram Khoshoo, MD, PhD, says a dramatic increase in referrals for regurgitation issues over the past few years prompted the study, which appears in the November issue of the journal Pediatrics.

"Parents have come to view normal spitting up as a medical condition that requires treatment. But in many cases it is more of a laundry issue than a medical issue," he tells WebMD. "We are replacing Tide and Febreze with Prevacid and Zantac."

Babies and GERD Medication

The prescribing of anti-reflux drugs to infants with presumed GERD has skyrocketed in recent years, with one study showing a sevenfold increase in the use of one class of commonly prescribed acid-reducing medicines used by infants between 1999 and 2004.

This dramatic rise in usage has occurred despite the fact that almost no research has been done on the safety of anti-reflux drugs in children younger than age 1, Eric Hassall, MD, of Vancouver's British Columbia Children's Hospital, tells WebMD.

Hassall says the newer generation of anti-reflux drugs, known as proton pump inhibitors (PPI), has revolutionized the treatment of serious reflux in children, leading to a tenfold drop in surgeries for the condition at his hospital.

But he adds that there is no question that the drugs are prescribed too often for use in babies.

"We know that up to 70% of otherwise completely healthy babies spit up up to four times a day," he says. "As they reach the 7- or 8-month mark this rate drops. And by the time they start walking, less than 5% are still spitting up."

He says parents and pediatricians increasingly label normal vomiting as reflux disease, especially if the baby is also irritable.

Constipation, formula protein allergies, and exposure to cigarette smoke are much more common causes of irritability, as is colic, which generally resolves around age 3 months, he says.

"If you remove these exposures, at least 25% of babies will get better within a few weeks," he says. "They may continue to spit up, but they will be much happier."

He adds that the long-term safety of treating infants with powerful acid-suppressing drugs remains unknown.

While studies have shown the drugs to be generally safe in older children with reflux disease, there is also a suggestion that their long-term use may increase vulnerability to pneumonia and gastric disease.

Reflux Red Flags

Khoshoo says babies who spit up frequently should be evaluated for reflux disease if they are not gaining weight normally, if they have recurrent respiratory symptoms or wheezing, and if they are constantly irritable.

Forceful vomiting is another red flag that should not be ignored.

"If a baby is gaining weight and generally happy, the chances are very good that they have uncomplicated reflux that does not need drug treatment," he says.

When the babies in Khoshoo's study who did not have clinically relevant reflux were taken off anti-reflux drugs, most did not experience an increase in symptoms.

There are things parents can do to minimize normal spitting up. The Children's Digestive Health and Nutrition Foundation has these recommendations:

• Avoid overfeeding. Don't feed the baby again immediately after he spits up. Instead, wait until the next scheduled feeding.
• If a baby is formula fed, thickening the formula with rice cereal may help. But Khoshoo cautions that doing this without reducing formula volume will result in overfeeding, which could make the problem worse. He says a baby normally given 6 ounces of formula during a feeding should be fed 4 ounces of formula thickened with 4 tablespoons of cereal.
• Avoid exposure to cigarette smoke.
• Keep an infant upright for at least 30 minutes after feeding.

Khoshoo also recommends putting babies to sleep on their backs at a 30 to 45 degree angle "to let gravity work for you."

Brain Tour

I thought this Brain Tour was interesting. I found it on the Alzheimer's Association website.

http://www.alz.org/alzheimers_disease_4719.asp

Bit more info. . .

Here's a link that has a bit more info about the research grant at DSRTF ~ http://dsrtf.org/news-103007.htm

KKI DS Clinic Research

I was at Kennedy Krieger Institute's DS clinic site and saw this DS research announcment and thought I'd pass it along, incase someone was interested - http://www.kennedykrieger.org/pdf/programs/ds_flier_07.pdf

DSRTF Grants Research Funds to Dr. Roger Reeves

DSRTF Grants $250,000 to Dr. Roger Reeves at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine DSRTF announces funding for a major new research program led by Dr. Roger Reeves at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Dr. Roger Reeves’ recent research discovered that a certain area of the brain, the cerebellum, is underdeveloped in a Down syndrome mouse model, analogous to observations in individuals with Down syndrome. These studies by Dr. Reeves and his colleagues further led to the identification of a potential drug that essentially normalizes the development of the cerebellum in the mouse model. This new grant from DSRTF significantly extends Dr. Reeves’ research, and includes addressing two critical next questions: Does the potential drug also correct a deficit in the development of the nerve cells in the hippocampus, a brain area involved in learning and memory? Does the potential drug produce positive and measurable effects on learning and memory in a Down syndrome mouse model? “The DSRTF award allows us to pursue our preliminary observations immediately without the now considerable delay that’s usually associated with obtaining federal funding,” says Dr. Reeves. “With a decrease of nearly 70 percent- from $42 to $13 million- in the amount of Down syndrome research dollars from the National Institutes of Health in the last few years the role of groups like DSRTF has become critical to continued progress in the effort to help 350,000 Americans with Down syndrome.” This new grant adds a third novel potential therapeutic target to the DSRTF-supported research portfolio, which also includes two additional recently discovered potential therapeutic targets currently under investigation at Stanford University School of Medicine. DSRTF’s Scientific Advisory Board unanimously agreed that the new research is intriguing and closely aligns with DSRTF’s mission of accelerating research that will lead to a treatment to improve learning and memory in individuals with Down syndrome.

Turmeric is needed at a young age!

The abstract below shows that they detected Abeta levels in the spinal fluid of children with DS at a very young age (8 mths, being the youngest one they tested!). This shows all the more reason to supplement accordingly to deal with the bad effects of the APP gene triplication - it is causing problems very early on. Turmeric helps break-up Abeta plaques and tangles (in the brain - part of the AD pathogenesis). We supplement my brother with Turmeric. He gets it in his NTV-D and we also give him some extra at times (although I think we will be more consistent now, especially after doing some of this reading).


Increase in beta-Amyloid Levels in Cerebrospinal Fluid of Children with Down
Syndrome.

Background: Individuals with Down syndrome (DS) invariably develop
Alzheimer's disease (AD) during their life span. It is therefore of
importance to study young DS patients when trying to elucidate early events
in AD pathogenesis. Aim: To investigate how levels of different amyloid-beta
(Abeta) peptides, as well as tau and phosphorylated tau, in cerebrospinal
fluid (CSF) from children with DS change over time. The first CSF sample was
taken at 8 months and the following two samples at 20-40 and 54 months of
age. Results: Individual levels of the Abeta peptides, as well as total
Abeta levels in CSF increased over time when measured with Western blot. Tau
in CSF decreased whereas there was no change in levels of phosphorylated tau
over time. Conclusion: The increasing levels of Abeta in CSF during early
childhood of DS patients observed in this study are probably due to the
trisomy of the Abeta precursor APP, which leads to an overproduction of
Abeta. Despite the increased CSF concentrations of Abeta, there were no
signs of an AD-indicating tau pattern in CSF, since the levels of total tau
decreased and phosphorylated tau remained unchanged. This observation
further strengthens the theory of Abeta pathology

Turmeric helping AD again!

I read about the following abstract in LEF's newest magazine. I thought it was pretty interesting. Basically it is saying that by giving these people with AD curcuminoids (the active ingredient in Turmeric) that it increased the absorption of amyloid-beta (which is a good thing). AB creates plaques and tangles in the brain and that is part of the problem in AD. The curcuminoids helped strengthen the immune system of these people to be able to deal with the AB.

http://tinyurl.com/ysnz7s

Curcuminoids enhance amyloid-β uptake by macrophages of Alzheimer's disease patients

Laura Zhang ^A1, Milan Fiala ^A1, John Cashman ^A2, James Sayre ^A3, Araceli Espinosa ^A4, Michelle Mahanian ^A1, Justin Zaghi ^A1, Vladimir Badmaev ^A5, Michael C. Graves ^A6, George Bernard ^{A4 A7}, Mark Rosenthal ^A1

Abstract:

Treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is difficult due to ignorance of its pathogenesis. AD patients have defects in phagocytosis of amyloid-β (1-42) (Aβ) in vitro by the innate immune cells, monocyte/macrophages and in clearance of Aβ plaques [5]. The natural product curcuminoids enhanced brain clearance of Aβ in animal models. We, therefore, treated macrophages of six AD patients and 3 controls by curcuminoids in vitro and measured Aβ uptake using fluorescence and confocal microscopy. At baseline, the intensity of Aβ uptake by AD macrophages was significantly lower in comparison to control macrophages and involved surface binding but no intracellular uptake. After treatment of macrophages with curcuminoids, Aβ uptake by macrophages of three of the six AD patients was significantly (P<0.001>

Love & Learning in the News

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071016/NEWS02/710160395/1004

Daughter's disability serves as motivation for this family
October 16, 2007

BY BEN SCHMITT

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Nearly 23 years ago, a doctor stared at a happy couple with a newborn daughter and told them she'd probably never read.

But instead of taking the news with tears and defeat, Joe and Susan Kotlinski looked at their baby girl, Maria, diagnosed with Down syndrome, and decided to turn the prognosis into motivation.

Today, Maria Kotlinski not only reads, she volunteers at a hospital and child care center, takes jazz dance classes and plays the piano.
Working out of their living room in Dearborn, the Kotlinski family has developed a reading system targeting special needs children, particularly those with Down syndrome and autism. Their company, Love and Learning, has touched 6,800 families worldwide.

"We were faced with a challenge that changed our life completely," said Joe Kotlinski, a 53-year-old Ford retiree who worked on the automaker's technical hotline.

They use instructional books and computer programs, but their most successful approach has been with DVDs.

"We know the average child watches 5,000 hours of TV before first grade," Joe Kotlinski said. "We use TV in a very constructive way."

The key to the Kotlinski family's success is repetition and starting early with children.

"The first thing we do with parents is congratulate them on their newborn, because what you get in hospitals and the perception of your child can be scary," Joe Kotlinski said. "Then we tell them about Maria -- she was reading a thousand words by age 5. That opens their mind."

But the most important message for these parents is immediacy: "We tell them to start now. Don't expect the school system to be able to teach your children to read."

The videos focus on simplification. The words on the screen appear by themselves: black words with a white background. The next frame shows an image of the words. The first kit, for example, teaches the alphabet and about 24 words.

And the lessons are intentionally short: only 2 to 4 minutes a day.

"We try to stimulate the child to try and imitate sounds and play around with sounds," Susan Kotlinski said. "Those sounds are the building blocks of spoken words."

One of their satisfied customers is Wayne County Medical Examiner Carl Schmidt, whose 3-year-old son, Lawrence, has Down syndrome.

"They provide the tools to help parents make that commitment, which I think is their most significant achievement," Schmidt said. "When you have a child with a disability, you become aware of the many misconceptions regarding particular ones, even among the medical community."

Schmidt said his first meeting with Maria Kotlinski surprised him.

"I was taken aback by the clarity of her diction and enunciation," he said. "Although it's obvious that her parent's efforts had much to do with it, their systematic way of approaching language instruction also played an important role."

Maria has a close relationship with her parents and younger sister, Lea, 21. They joke about Maria's piano playing, her dancing classes and proudly sit back as she describes her job duties as a volunteer at Cotter Early Childhood Center in Dearborn.

"I interact with the children," Maria said. "I play with them. I help them with their work and I keep them safe."

Joe Kotlinski still marvels at this foray into the world of educating kids with special needs.

"It's really turned into a wonderful opportunity to help people," he said. "The word 'miraculous' is appropriate. But it's not just for Maria. It's there for a lot of children."

Blood Test Could ID Alzheimer's Patients

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/15/health/main3368895.shtml

Blood Test Could ID Alzheimer's Patients

Researchers at Stanford University say they have developed a potentially pathbreaking blood test that could help to identify patients with Alzheimer's disease.

According to a paper published in the online edition of the British journal Nature Medicine, preliminary studies by a team of scientists led by a Stanford neurology professor show the test is yielding promising results in predicting which patients with mild memory loss are at high risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.

In a study of 259 blood samples, the test identified early markers for Alzheimer's with 90 percent accuracy, reports CBS News correspondent John Blackstone.

Today only an autopsy can establish for sure that a patient had Alzheimer's. Brain scans and spinal taps are helpful but they're not certain.

There is still plenty of lab work to be done, more rigorous research before it's proven a simple blood test can diagnose Alzheimer's, but those working on the test are hopeful it can be approved for use by 2009, adds Blackstone.

Currently, an early Alzheimer's diagnosis requires complex brain scans. Spinal fluid can also reveal the disease but that can be a difficult and painful test.