Bridging the gap from evidence to policy and practice: reducing the progression to metabolic syndrome for children and adolescents on antipsychotic medication.

Objectives: For children and adolescents, the adverse effects from antipsychotic medicines exaggerate the already considerable burden of having a serious mental illness. Many of these young people face a future not only limited by stigmatizing psychiatric illness but also a life restricted and shortened by physical ill-health, particularly cardiovascular disease and type-2 diabetes. This review focuses on bridging the current gap between available evidence and practice guidelines and policies.

The Saccharomyces cerevisiae chromatin remodeler Fun30 regulates DNA end resection and checkpoint deactivation.

Fun30 is a Swi2/Snf2 homolog in budding yeast that has been shown to remodel chromatin both in vitro and in vivo. We report that Fun30 plays a key role in homologous recombination, by facilitating 5'-to-3' resection of double-strand break (DSB) ends, apparently by facilitating exonuclease digestion of nucleosome-bound DNA adjacent to the DSB. Fun30 is recruited to an HO endonuclease-induced DSB and acts in both the Exo1-dependent and Sgs1-dependent resection pathways.

Health and education: service providers in partnership to improve mental health.

Background: Children and adolescents from complex or disadvantaged backgrounds and multiple needs often are reluctant to seek help and this is particularly relevant in the context of mental health difficulties. Further, the complexity of the health system can be overwhelming to the family who are likely to be chaotic and less able to seek help. The current project piloted an integrated service delivery model involving a child psychiatry service and the department of education to promote access to mental health assessment and intervention to young people attending special education schools in Sydney, Australia.

Pathogenetic model for Tourette syndrome delineates overlap with related neurodevelopmental disorders including Autism.

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a highly heritable neuropsychiatric disorder characterised by motor and vocal tics. Despite decades of research, the aetiology of TS has remained elusive. Recent successes in gene discovery backed by rapidly advancing genomic technologies have given us new insights into the genetic basis of the disorder, but the growing collection of rare and disparate findings have added confusion and complexity to the attempts to translate these findings into neurobiological mechanisms resulting in symptom genesis.

Genome-wide association study of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a common, debilitating neuropsychiatric illness with complex genetic etiology. The International OCD Foundation Genetics Collaborative (IOCDF-GC) is a multi-national collaboration established to discover the genetic variation predisposing to OCD. A set of individuals affected with DSM-IV OCD, a subset of their parents, and unselected controls, were genotyped with several different Illumina SNP microarrays.

Adult separation anxiety in pregnancy: how common is it?

The present study, the first to examine adult separation anxiety (ASA) in the context of pregnancy, found that ASA is a common yet unrecognized condition. Women attending an antenatal clinic were evaluated for the presence of ASA. A quarter of the women reached an established symptom threshold for ASA, with significantly more primigravida women (P = 0.

Weight gain and metabolic syndrome among young patients on antipsychotic medication: what do we know and where do we go?

Objective: Childhood obesity and its sequelae, including metabolic syndrome, are reaching epidemic proportions worldwide. Young people treated with antipsychotic medication are particularly at risk as they experience significant weight gain as a side effect of second generation antipsychotics (SGAs) with consequent increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular morbidity and metabolic syndrome. However, surveillance for these side effects is not carried out nor intervention offered in routine clinical prctice.

International comparisons of behavioral and emotional problems in preschool children: parents' reports from 24 societies.

International comparisons were conducted of preschool children's behavioral and emotional problems as reported on the Child Behavior Checklist for Ages 1½-5 by parents in 24 societies (N = 19,850). Item ratings were aggregated into scores on syndromes; Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-oriented scales; a Stress Problems scale; and Internalizing, Externalizing, and Total Problems scales. Effect sizes for scale score differences among the 24 societies ranged from small to medium (3-12%).

Genetic basis of autism: is there a way forward?

Purpose Of Review: This paper outlines some of the key findings from genetic research carried out in the last 12-18 months, which indicate that autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex disorder involving interactions between genetic, epigenetic and environmental factors.

Recent Findings: The current literature highlights the presence of genetic and phenotypic heterogeneity in ASD with a number of underlying pathogenetic mechanisms. In this regard, there are at least three phenotypic presentations with distinct genetic underpinnings: autism plus phenotype characterized by syndromic ASD caused by rare, single-gene disorders; broad autism phenotype caused by genetic variations in single or multiple genes, each of these variations being common and distributed continually in the general population, but resulting in varying clinical phenotypes when it reaches a certain threshold through complex gene-gene and gene-environment interactions; and severe and specific phenotype caused by 'de-novo' mutations in the patient or transmitted through asymptomatic carriers of such mutation.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and environmental toxic metal exposure in the United Arab Emirates.

No systematic studies have been carried out on the effects of toxic metals on childhood behavior in the Gulf Region including the UAE. The relationship between blood levels of heavy metals and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were explored in school-aged children of UAE and it was found that increased blood concentrations of lead (Pb), manganese (Mn) and zinc (Zn) were significantly associated with ADHD. The findings suggest that monitoring for exposure to heavy metal levels and education on potential child health hazards related to them are indicated.

Preschool psychopathology reported by parents in 23 societies: testing the seven-syndrome model of the child behavior checklist for ages 1.5-5.

Objective: To test the fit of a seven-syndrome model to ratings of preschoolers' problems by parents in very diverse societies.

Method: Parents of 19,106 children 18 to 71 months of age from 23 societies in Asia, Australasia, Europe, the Middle East, and South America completed the Child Behavior Checklist for Ages 1.5-5 (CBCL/1.

The Boomerangs Parenting Program for Aboriginal parents and their young children.

Objective: Using three case studies, this paper describes the development and evaluation of 'The Boomerangs Aboriginal Circle of Security Parenting Camp Program', which is a clinical intervention based on an attachment framework using the Circle of Security and Marte Meo, and drawing on traditional Aboriginal culture.

Methods: Three mothers from an Aboriginal Australian background with preschool age children attended the 20-session Boomerangs Program, including an initial camp and a second camp after 6 weeks. The camp provided the opportunity for parent empowerment and to explore the strengths and resources of the mother to facilitate better mother-child interactions and relationship, in a naturalistic setting.

Adult separation anxiety disorder: a disorder comes of age.

This article explores accruing evidence supporting the occurrence of an adult form of separation anxiety disorder (ASAD), a category yet to be recognized by international classification systems. ASAD can have its first onset in adulthood, although in a portion of cases, it represents a persistence or recurrence of the childhood-onset type. Recent large-scale clinic studies have suggested that ASAD is associated with high levels of disability.

Sgs1 and exo1 redundantly inhibit break-induced replication and de novo telomere addition at broken chromosome ends.

In budding yeast, an HO endonuclease-inducible double-strand break (DSB) is efficiently repaired by several homologous recombination (HR) pathways. In contrast to gene conversion (GC), where both ends of the DSB can recombine with the same template, break-induced replication (BIR) occurs when only the centromere-proximal end of the DSB can locate homologous sequences. Whereas GC results in a small patch of new DNA synthesis, BIR leads to a nonreciprocal translocation.

Metabolic syndrome among the young obese in the United Arab Emirates.

Obesity is the sixth major risk factor for the overall burden of disease globally, and is associated with a constellation of metabolic derangements starting early in life. Features of metabolic syndrome (MS) were assessed among obese young individuals in the UAE. Of the 260 obese young people screened, 44% were found to have MS.

Tourette syndrome in children and adolescents: special considerations.

Tourette syndrome (TS) affects people of all ages, with onset in early childhood and continuing through the different stages of the life cycle into adolescence and adults. This review focuses on barriers to diagnosis and challenges in the management of young patients with TS. Barriers to identification occur at multiple levels, including detection in the community setting (including schools), parents' help-seeking behavior, and cultural influences on such behavior, as well as diagnosis by the medical provider.

The international prevalence, epidemiology, and clinical phenomenology of Tourette syndrome: a cross-cultural perspective.

The overall international prevalence of Tourette syndrome (TS) is 1% in the majority of cultures of the world. Both TS and tics are certainly more obvious and may be more common in younger people. Moreover, TS is seen less frequently in some cultures.

Postpartum mental illness: perspectives from an Arabian Gulf population.

There is growing awareness of the importance of mental health issues in the perinatal period in Western societies, but very little information is available from Muslim and Arab countries. Qualitative information gathered using focus group discussions of women of childbearing age is presented along with additional information obtained from key informant interviews with grandmothers, husbands, and health care professionals in the United Arab Emirates. The participants were women attending a public sector clinic in Al Ain, Abu Dhabi, and a private clinic in Dubai on a particular day.

ADHD in the Arab world: a review of epidemiologic studies.

Objective: Epidemiological studies on psychiatric disorders are quite rare in the Arab World. This article reviews epidemiological studies on ADHD in all the Arab countries.

Method: All epidemiological studies on ADHD conducted from 1966 through th present were reviewed.

Integration of child mental health services to primary care: challenges and opportunities.

In the first decade of this new millennium, health professionals are faced with a rapidly increasing need for child mental health services and changing models of service provision. This gives us a unique opportunity to make provision for services where it has not been available before, or to improve upon the existing services. This paper examines the challenges and opportunities while attempting to integrate child mental health services to primary care.

Prevalence and correlates of conduct disorder among inmates of juvenile detention centres, United Arab Emirates.

The prevalence of conduct disorder was assessed in 77 young people in 4 juvenile detention centres in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The prevalence of conduct disorder was 24.7%, and recidivism, as indicated by repeat admissions to the centres, was found to be associated with conduct disorder.

Attitudes, perceptions, and family coping in pediatric cancer and childhood diabetes.

The importance of psychosocial factors in psychological adjustment and coping in children with cancer and their families is well recognized. In this study, parental attitudes, children's self-perceptions, and families' coping were studied in 38 children with leukemia, 30 children with juvenile diabetes, and 30 control subjects. Children with cancer scored themselves more negatively than their parents on all the subscales except scholastic competence, while children with diabetes scored negatively in the area of athletic competence.