November marks Perinatal Anxiety & Depression Australia (PANDA) Week. PANDA, now in it’s 18th year, is all about supporting the mental and emotional wellbeing of expecting and new parents.

November marks Perinatal Anxiety & Depression Australia (PANDA) Week. PANDA, now in it’s 18th year, is all about supporting the mental and emotional wellbeing of expecting and new parents.

Screens can really upset our sleep, and disrupt other hormones including oestrogen, and there is absolutely no place for them in the bedroom. The next time your teens are pleading with you, desperately searching for the reason why you are turning off devices and locking them away in cupboards, get them to watch this 4 minute clip from SciShow

Dementia Awareness Month is Dementia Australia’s national awareness-raising campaign held every year throughout September. 

Its aim is to encourage all Australians to become more aware of dementia, to get a better understanding of what it is like to live with dementia and how we can support people living with dementia.

This year’s theme is Small actions Big difference.

There are many small actions people can take to create a big difference for people impacted by dementia, their families and carers. 

There are many ways to get involved in Dementia Awareness Month.

Earlier this month was OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) and Anxiety Awareness week in Victoria. However, with nearly 240,000 people in Western Australia experiencing anxiety this year it seems really important to talk about anxiety disorders here as well.

The best way to learn about someone is to take the time to listen to their story, the best way to understand someone is to step into their shoes. It is important for all of us to feel understood, this way we break down barriers and we find solutions. August brings a time to build our awareness of anxiety disorders, so, first, we went looking for real people’s descriptions of what anxiety feels like:

In one article from The Independent a woman explained the constant feeling of being anxious ‘as if she tripped and the moment where you don't know if you are going to catch yourself or not is how she felt all day long', and someone else describes ‘[It’s like] when you tap your pocket to get your wallet, and it is not there (and like the woman above said), it’s like that all the time.’

For some, particularly those living right now with a chronic pain experience, this may be a painful question to read…it may be one that has been posed by a health professional sitting across a desk in front of you…it may have felt, and still feel, unfathomable that they could have said that to you…they may not have known the truth in their statement, but we are going to explain it to you now. We feel pretty confident you will feel better informed, and hopefully, even a bit better after you have thought about it…

I have just returned from The 2018 International Neurorehabilitation Conference in Boston run by Harvard Medical School. I was one of hundreds of delegates from all over the world attending to get the latest updates on cutting-edge treatments to help people with brain problems. We had experts presenting on a large range of topics ranging from neuroplasticity to proven and state-of-the-art brain therapies.

Most children with Autism are also facing additional challenges like ADHD and Anxiety, and one third have Epilepsy. It appears that this is caused by a gene mutation which is also associated with language delay and intellectual disability.

New research, published in The Journal of Developmental and Behavioural Pediatrics last month, has shown that a simple 2-minute questionnaire can help detect autism in toddlers. Research indicates that about 1% of children have Autism in Australia. Like all children, every child with Autism is unique, however there are core symptoms characterised by differences in behaviour, social interaction, communication and sensory processing. Every person is affected differently, and whilst some people with Autism also have an intellectual impairment or disability, some people have average or above-average intelligence. People with Autism often experience additional challenges and problems like ADHD, Anxiety and Depression are particularly common.

In the past, treatment for ADHD has been limited to stimulant. However prior research has shown that the effects of medications tend to decrease after 2 years of use and may also cause side-effects such as anxiety, nausea and difficulties with sleep.

May is the month to be mad about mindfulness…and what a great initiative to motivate people to start daily mindfulness practice and also make a significant donation to improve clean water supply to those in need. Mindful in May is a wonderful win-win project founded by Dr Elise Bialylew – medical doctor, psychiatrist, life coach and writer.

Neuroplasticity (see: https://www.perthbraincentre.com.au/) is the ability of the brain to change its own structure and function as a result of what happens to us, and what we do and what we think. Some have said that the discovery that the brain is not therefore “hard-wired” and can change is the most important advancement in science in over 400 years.

There is good evidence indicating that children are not spending enough time outdoors. There has been a dramatic shift over the past 30 years, affecting children in particular and “green places” have been replaced with “screen spaces.” The move indoors with a sharp increase in screen time is having a significant impact on children’s physical and mental health. Most of the children we see in clinic with problems like ADHD and Anxiety are spending too much time sitting indoors on screens and when they are just encouraged to simply get outside often start to feel better.

What is Autism Spectrum Disorder?

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a persistent neuro-developmental disorder that affects how a person communicates, relates to other people, and how they experience the world around them. Often symptoms of ASD develop gradually, and parents will usually notice signs by around 2 yrs of age, when it becomes apparent they are not meeting their developmental milestones.1 Sometimes though, the symptoms can be subtle and may not be obvious until school age or even later in life. In Australia, around 1% of the population has ASD1 with males being 4 times more likely to be diagnosed than females. The cause of Autism is not clearly understood but it appears to be a complex interaction of both genetic and environmental factors.3

The results of possibly the largest study ever conducted looking at the relationship between alcohol consumption and dementia have just been published in The Lancet Public Health Journal.

Researchers in France studied over 1 million adults diagnosed with dementia and looked at the link with drinking alcohol. They found that the majority (57%) of adults diagnosed with early-onset dementia (that is dementia that starts before 65 years old), were associated with heavy drinking.

Wouldn't it is amazing to be able to “look inside” your brain and see how it’s working ? Well, thanks to brain research is now possible to do just this with special brain imaging known as QEEG. Scientists have been able to measure the activity from our brain since the 1930s, and this is known as EEG (or brainwaves), which is still used today to help diagnose conditions such as epilepsy.

Two thirds of the population believes a myth that has been propagated for over a century: that we use only 10% of our brains. Hardly! Our neuron-dense brains have evolved to use the least amount of energy while carrying the most information possible -- a feat that requires the entire brain. Richard E. Cytowic debunks this neurological myth (and explains why we aren’t so good at multitasking).

This amazing video from The Allen Institute for Brain Research (<link to https://www.alleninstitute.org/what-we-do/brain-science/ > takes us a visually stunning view of the brain, all the way from the outside to the the tiniest cells (and smaller still) on the inside: https://youtu.be/Zj3RxtJ_Ljc

The Global Council on Brain Health (GCBH) is an independent collaborative of scientists, health professionals, scholars and policy experts from around the world working in areas of brain health related to human cognition. The GCBH focuses on brain health relating to peoples’ ability to think and reason as they age, including aspects of memory, perception and judgment. The GCBH is convened by AARP with support from Age UK to offer the best possible advice about what older adults can do to maintain and improve their brain health. GCBH members come together to discuss specific lifestyle issue areas that may impact peoples’ brain health as they age with the goal of providing evidence-based recommendations for people to consider incorporating into their lives.