Publications by authors named "Rochelle Caplan"
Article Synopsis
- The study investigates factors influencing urgent health-care use in families with children diagnosed with pediatric psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES), a condition that imposes a heavy burden on health services.
- Researchers analyzed data from 47 children with PNES and 25 sibling controls, focusing on how child coping styles and parental bonding styles affect emergency room visits and hospitalizations.
- Findings suggest that higher health-care use correlates with specific coping strategies and negative parental bonding perceptions, indicating that improving coping skills and parental responses may help reduce urgent health-care needs in these families.
Language and social skills are essential for intrapersonal and interpersonal functioning and quality of life. Since epilepsy impacts these important domains of individuals' functioning, understanding the psychosocial and biological factors involved in the relationship among epilepsy, language, and social skills has important theoretical and clinical implications. This review first describes the psychosocial and biological factors involved in the association between language and social behavior in children and in adults and their relevance for epilepsy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: This study examined the risk factors for learning problems (LP) in pediatric psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES) and their specificity by comparing psychopathology, medical, cognitive/linguistic/achievement, bullying history, and parent education variables between subjects with PNES with and without LP and between subjects with PNES and siblings with LP.
Methods: 55 subjects with PNES and 35 siblings, aged 8-18years, underwent cognitive, linguistic, and achievement testing, and completed somatization and anxiety sensitivity questionnaires. A semi-structured psychiatric interview about the child was administered to each subject and parent.
Objective: We aimed to compare long-term social outcomes in young adults with childhood-onset epilepsy (cases) with neurologically normal sibling controls.
Methods: Long-term social outcomes were assessed at the 15-year follow-up of the Connecticut Study of Epilepsy, a community-based prospective cohort study of children with newly diagnosed epilepsy. Young adults with childhood-onset epilepsy with complicated (abnormal neurologic exam findings, abnormal brain imaging with lesion referable to epilepsy, intellectual disability (ID; IQ < 60) or informative history of neurologic insults to which the occurrence of epilepsy might be attributed), and uncomplicated epilepsy presentations were compared to healthy sibling controls.
Objective: This study identified items on the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) that predict those children and adolescents with epilepsy at highest risk for multiple psychiatric diagnoses.
Methods: Three hundred twenty-eight children, ages 5-18 years, and their parents participated in separate structured psychiatric interviews about the children, which yielded Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) diagnoses. Parents completed the CBCL.
Background: The relationship between cortical thickness (CThick) and sulcal depth (SDepth) changes across brain regions during development. Epilepsy youth have CThick and SDepth abnormalities and prevalent psychiatric disorders.
Aims: This study compared the CThick-SDepth relationship in children with focal epilepsy with typically developing children (TDC) and the role played by seizure and psychopathology variables.
Objective: To test whether the reported association between pediatric epilepsy and behavioral problems may be distorted by the use of parental proxy report instruments.
Study Design: Children in the Connecticut Study of Epilepsy were assessed 8-9 years after their epilepsy diagnosis (time-1) with the parent-proxy Child Behavior Check List (CBCL) (ages 6-18 years) or the Young Adult Self-Report (≥18 years of age). For children <18 years of age, parents also completed the Child Health Questionnaire, which contains scales for impact of child's illness on the parents.
Purpose: To examine the risk factors for internalizing (anxiety, depression) and posttraumatic stress (PTSD) disorders, somatization, and anxiety sensitivity (AS) in youth with psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES).
Methods: 55 probands with PNES and 35 siblings, aged 8-18 years, underwent a psychiatric interview, cognitive and language testing, and completed somatization and AS questionnaires. Parents provided the subjects' medical, psychiatric, family, and adversity history information.
Background: Adults with childhood-onset epilepsy experience poorer adult social outcomes than their peers. The relative roles of seizures over time versus learning and psychiatric problems are unclear.
Methods: We examined independent influences of psychiatric and learning disorders and of seizure course in 241 young adults (22-35 years old) with uncomplicated epilepsy in a longitudinal community-based cohort study.
Article Synopsis
- The study investigates psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES) in youth, focusing on the unique biopsychosocial risk factors that distinguish affected individuals from their siblings.
- The research involved 55 diagnosed PNES youths and 35 sibling controls, utilizing video EEGs, psychiatric assessments, and various self-reports to gather data.
- Results revealed that PNES youths had significantly more medical, neurological, and psychiatric issues, as well as higher anxiety sensitivity and traumatic experiences, pointing to specific vulnerabilities associated with PNES.
To date, only a very narrow window of ethical dilemmas in psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES) has been explored. Numerous distinct ethical dilemmas arise in diagnosing and treating pediatric and adolescent patients with PNESs. Important ethical values at stake include trust, transparency, confidentiality, professionalism, autonomy of all stakeholders, and justice.
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