CBT benefits moms with kids who have special needs

To paraphrase something the actress Allison Janney once said: If June Cleaver [Barbara Billingsley] made women in the 1950s and ’60s feel bad because they didn’t measure up to her all-too-perfect mom character in “Leave it to Beaver,” Janney’s character on the TV sitcom “Mom” should make moms everywhere feel great!

Well, laughter is great medicine. But there’s something else that can make moms, especially those caring for children with special needs, feel better about themselves: cognitive behavioural therapy, or CBT.

Researchers at the University of Louisville have found that brief CBT sessions — just five 45-to-60-minute meetings — significantly improved the mental state of women who take care of children with chronic health conditions, such as cerebral palsy and cystic fibrosis. The therapists also believe that CBT works in any situation where mothers are emotionally stretched because of a child’s complex health condition.

One therapist describes the women as feeling isolated and blue because they couldn’t hire a babysitter who knew how to deal with their child’s special needs, and consequently couldn’t find a way to spend time with friends. But even if such situations didn’t change, after therapy, the moms reported decreased depressive symptoms, such as negative thinking, and their sleep quality greatly improved.

So if you (or someone you know), find yourself in a similar situation, locate a CBT program near you. Contact the Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies at www.abct.org to find a CBT therapist in your area.

Talk and listen to your toddlers

Written by Sting (he credits his infant son at the time with the lyrics: “I’ve never paid him, so that’s another possible lawsuit”), “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da (Is all I want to say to you)” actually might be expressive enough to raise a child’s IQ by an average of 14 to 27 per cent. That’s according to a recent study published in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The point that the researchers were making is that toddlers between 18 and 24 months of age who take more turns speaking in a back-and-forth dialogue with adults, even though they may not be using real words, develop higher “expressive vocabulary scores nine to 14 years later.” That’s pretty impressive research. (The researchers looked at three age groups: two to 17 months; 18 to 24 months; and over 25 months.)

So when you’re with your child (they did not make a distinction between boys and girls), put down the cellphone — and take it out of your child’s hands, too! — and have a ton of discussions with your little one, especially during this very powerful developmental stage in his or her life.

Remember, we told you a few weeks ago that when a second-grade teacher asked students which modern gizmo they wished had never been created, nearly 25 per cent said they hated their mom’s cellphone and wished it didn’t exist. So, talk with your toddlers and see what they have to say. Just Do, Do, Do.

Bang those drums

If you’ve ever been to a Cleveland Indians home baseball game, chances are about 100 per cent that you’ve heard a tomtom drum echoing from the top bleacher seats. The drummer is a guy named John Adams, a retired AT&T worker who, besides attending home games since 1973, co-teaches a graduate level course at Cleveland State University on aquatics for kids with disabilities.

We’re pretty sure Adams would be delighted to know, if he doesn’t already, that drumming does more than rev up a sports crowd. It helps children diagnosed with autism improve their motor control and enhances their powers of concentration and communication.

According to a new study, autistic children who drum for 60 minutes a week experience vast improvement in dexterity, rhythm and overall timing, along with an improved ability to concentrate on their homework. The benefits don’t stop there.

Teachers told the researchers that their autistic students who played the drums also were better able to follow instructions and their social interactions and communication with peers, adults and the school staff improved significantly.

So if you know someone who has autism or someone who has a child with autism, suggest they give “The Kit” (as Ringo Starr calls a drum set) a try, either a traditional model or a newer electronic drum (which is great, because you can control the volume). Check local music stores for info on lessons. Then you’ll discover if you are (or are related to) a budding Buddy Rich or an emerging Sheila E.

What to do when you get an STD

In 2012, an Oregon woman who sued her date for giving her genital herpes won $900,000. And one tycoon allegedly paid $52 million for giving chlamydia to his mistress. It seems sexually transmitted diseases are a growth industry for lawyers! Perhaps that’s because nearly 2.3 million cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis were diagnosed in the U.S. in 2017; 200,000 more than in 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The good news is that those STDs, if diagnosed and treated correctly, are curable. The bad news? Too often, when one person is diagnosed and treated, the partner(s) isn’t.

To overcome that lag and stop further spread of STDs, the CDC advocates “Expedited Partner Therapy (EPT) for STDs.” It’s encouraged some states to allow doctors who diagnose a patient with an STD to write a prescription or provide medications for that person’s partner, sight unseen, and clinics and pharmacies to distribute treatment for partners. However, seven states and Puerto Rico don’t advocate EPT, and South Carolina and Kentucky don’t allow it.

A study in the American Journal of Public Health urges docs (and states) to use EPT. But you need to reduce your risk of getting and transmitting STDs. Here’s how:

• Use a condom, unless you’re tested, clear and monogamous.

• If you suspect an STD, get tested.

• If you have an STD, get treated and ask for ETP.

• If you have an STD, tell your partner before you’re intimate. That protects your partner from terrible surprises and in most states that protects you legally, if you transmit the infection.

Don’t let asthma cause you weight gain

Pear-shaped Homer Simpson often has severe breathing problems when he tries to pick up the pace, and it makes sense, since we have long-known that obesity is a serious risk factor for developing respiratory issues. About 39 per cent of folks who are obese develop asthma.

What’s the connection? A new lab study in the American Journal of Physiology — Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology suggests that having a high body mass index triggers bodywide and localized inflammation in the lungs that leads to constriction of airways and asthma.

Fortunately, losing weight can help ease symptoms. In one Danish study from 2012, obese participants who lost 14.5 per cent of their initial weight saw a “48 to 100 per cent remission of asthma symptoms and use of asthma medication.”

But what hasn’t been recognized, until now, is that asthma is a risk factor for becoming obese. Another new study tracked more than 8,600 people and found 10.2 per cent of folks with asthma at the start of the study had become obese at the 10-year mark; only 7.7 per cent of those without asthma were obese at that point. Folks who developed asthma as adults and those with non-allergic asthma were at even greater risk of post-diagnosis obesity.

So if you develop asthma, this is one more reason to stick with a long-term asthma control regimen that works — don’t just rely on a rescue inhaler — and to increase, not decrease, your physical activity, with your doc’s advice. Let asthma sufferers David Beckham, Jerome Bettis and Jackie Joyner Kersee inspire you.