Development of a cost of illness inventory questionnaire for children with autism spectrum disorder in South Asia.

Background: The economic burden of autism is substantial and includes a range of costs, including healthcare, education, productivity losses, informal care and respite care, among others. In India, approximately, 2 million children aged 2-9 years have autism. Given the likely substantial burden of illness and the need to identify effective and cost-effective interventions, this research aimed to produce a comprehensive cost of illness inventory (COII) suitable for children with autism in South Asia (India) to support future research.

"I was Confused … and Still am" Barriers Impacting the Help-Seeking Pathway for an Autism Diagnosis in Urban North India: A Mixed Methods Study.

Timely recognition of autism in children is integral to improve developmental outcomes. This study used mixed-methods (84 case-registers and 20 in-depth interviews with caregivers of children with a diagnosis of autism) to explore the extent to which the nature of parental concerns and prior knowledge of developmental disorders impact the time between symptom recognition and autism diagnosis, and the contextual family, societal and health-system related factors that impede the autism help-seeking pathway. Lack of awareness of age-appropriate child developmental milestones, apparent amongst the community and health professionals, contributed to a 1.

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation safely administered after seizure.

High-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) over left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex has been clearly reported to be effective in the treatment of depression. We report a patient with treatment-resistant depression, without any known risk factors, who developed seizure during the fourth rTMS session. After written informed consent, he received further rTMS sessions under cover of antiepileptic drug valproate and improved without recurrence of seizure.