Energy and Healing

YouTube - 84 Days In 48 Seconds: Time Lapse Weight Loss

2007-11-03T01:55:00.000-07:00

YouTube - 84 Days In 48 Seconds: Time Lapse Weight Loss

YouTube - A Beautiful Storm Cloud Time Lapse (with a surprise)

2007-11-03T01:49:00.000-07:00

YouTube - A Beautiful Storm Cloud Time Lapse (with a surprise)

Live or Die; At a Stroke!

2007-10-02T08:56:00.000-07:00

GOOD TO KNOW!!

New Sign of a Stroke -------- Stick out Your Tongue
STROKE: Remember The 1st Three Letters....S.T.R.

A friend sent this and encouraged me to post it and spread the word. If everyone can remember something this simple, we could save some lives.

STROKE IDENTIFICATION:
During a BBQ, a friend stumbled and took a little fall - she assured everyone that she was fine (they offered to call paramedics) .....she said she had just tripped over a brick because of her new shoes.They got her cleaned up and got her a new plate of food. While she appeared a bit shaken up, Ingrid went about enjoying herself the rest of the evening.Ingrid's husband called later telling everyone that his wife had been taken to the hospital - (at 6:00 pm Ingrid passed away.) She had suffered a stroke at the BBQ.

Had they known how to identify the signs of a stroke, perhaps Ingrid would be with us today. Some don't die.... they end up in a helpless, hopeless condition instead.It only takes a minute to read this...A neurologist says that if he can get to a stroke victim within 3 hours he can totally reverse the effects of a stroke...totally. He said the trick was getting a stroke recognized, diagnosed, and then getting the patient medically cared for within 3 hours, which is tough.

RECOGNIZING A STROKE
Thank God for the sense to remember the "3" steps, STR . Read and Learn!Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster. The stroke victim may suffer severe brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke.Doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:S * Smile for me, please?T * Talk coherently: ask them to repeat a sentence e.g. It is sunny out today.R * Raise both arms for me, will you?

NOTE: Another 'sign' of a stroke is this: Ask the person to 'stick' out his tongue.. If the tongue is 'crooked', if it goes to one side or the other, that is also an indication of a stroke.

If he or she has trouble with ANY of these tasks, call emergency immediately and describe the symptoms to the appropriate person.A cardiologist says if everyone who gets this e-mail sends it to10 people, at least one life could be saved.

go well
M

Shadow Show

2007-06-05T05:14:00.001-07:00

Shadows

Thought Field Therapy Originator responds to Critics

2007-05-18T23:55:00.000-07:00

Thought Field Therapy: Response to Our Critics and a Scrutiny of Some Old Ideas of Social ScienceThis is a preprint of an article published in October 2001 Journal of Clinical Psychology, ©2001 Wiley Publishers http://www.interscience.Wiley.com Roger J. Callahan, Ph.D. E-Mail: roger@tftrx.com
This paper was not subjected to peer review. The absence of peer review of both research papers and the reviews themselves emanated from concerns expressed by Dr. Roger Callahan that the review process was biased against TFT. This paper was published in an open review of the original research paper of TFT. The reader is encouraged to read the original article, along with this accompanying review, and the final critique of the Journal's decision to publish this set of nonreviewed articles in order to gain a perspective on the issues presented. _ Larry E. Beutler, editor.

ABSTRACT
Thought Field Therapy (TFT) is criticized for not following the usual social science guidelines in research which is appropriate for minimum impact therapies. The usual research guidelines are due to a social science bias where crucial subjective reports are ignored, where tests of statistical significance and control groups are required. TFT may be closer to “hard science” than social science due to extraordinarily high level of success. A few valid points are acknowledged and were already covered such as importance of autonomic balance when raising SDNN and necessity to restrict movement when electrocardiograph methods not used in measuring heart rate variability. Rejected as possible explanations of TFT’s robust results are: placebo, regression to the mean (inappropriate in high and low heart rate variability), and passage of time when such time is merely minutes.

"At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes -- an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive, and the most ruthlessly skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense.”
Carl Sagan, 1996, p304

“In reality, almost all the findings of science offend common sense.”
Etienne Klein, 1996, p24

I have very limited space to respond to a large number of criticisms. I will not be able to answer all but will respond to what I consider the most relevant. First, I must correct an error reported by Rosen and Davison.

The Arizona Board - To set the record straight, the sanction of the Arizona Board referred to by Rosen and Davison, was not against Thought Field Therapy (TFT) but rather claims appearing in a newspaper article. Arizona Board member, David Yandell is quoted “It’s important to understand that we didn’t rule against Thought Field Therapy … we ruled against a practitioner who made misleading statements to potential clients.” (Sandmaier and Cooper, p14).

My Theory - A number of criticisms are directed toward my presumed theory; however, none of the papers presented my theory. Since theory is an attempt to explain certain facts it is pointless to discuss a theory with people who are unaware of, or refuse to acknowledge, the very facts that the theory is attempting to explain. Theory also needs to be distinguished from effectiveness. For example, nitroglycerine has been used successfully for a hundred years to relieve angina with no idea or theory why it worked. Alfred Nobel, a munitions maker used nitroglycerine not only for munitions but also for his angina. A hundred years after the successful use of nitroglycerin for angina, Alfred’s Prize was given to three scientists in 1998 who discovered the mechanism that finally explained why nitroglycerin helped (Ringertz, 2000).

I was a pioneer in cognitive therapy long before it became known and accepted and I used to teach cognitive theory. I personally encountered then the same sort of difficulties with colleagues and cognitive therapy as I encounter now due to TFT. In the very early days of TFT, I explained my results by resorting to cognitive theory with which I was quite familiar. I believed TFT was changing deep beliefs faster and more effectively than any therapy procedure I had ever encountered! Gradually, a growing number of burgeoning facts forced me to completely abandon my cognitive explanation (Callahan and Callahan, 2000).

Fundamental Disagreements - It is clear that I have a number of fundamental disagreements with the critics. They appear to discount the reports of clients while I hold such reports as vital to successful practice. When one is operating with a highly effective, and dose specific treatment such as TFT, feedback in the form of self-report is absolutely indispensable. Self-reports, I believe, are among the most important data for the science of clinical psychology. The critics are impressed with therapy studies that require statistical tests. I am suspicious of the value of studies where the differences between treated and untreated are so small that statistical tests are required. They believe strongly in placebos, I am not sure placebos are real. They believe in control groups and I say control groups are relevant only when it is not immediately and overwhelmingly obvious if anything at all happened as a result of treatment. They believe they are highly scientific, I believe that their social science approach may limit their perceptions.

Richard Feynman, Nobel Laureate in physics has called attention to the pretentiousness of some social scientists. Under the heading: “Science Which Is Not a Science…” Feynman says: Social science is an example of a science which is not a science; they don’t do things scientifically, they follow the forms – or you gather data, you do so-and-so and so forth but they don’t get any laws, they haven’t found out anything. … I have a great suspicion that they don’t know, that this stuff is wrong and they’re intimidating people” (Feynman, p22, 1999).

The Importance of Subjective Reports or Subjective Units of Distress (SUD) - If one is being fitted for eyeglasses or a hearing aid, the subjective report of how well one can see or hear with correction is indispensable in obtaining a proper and optimum fit. More importantly, and for the same reasons, subjective report is indispensable to the proper evaluation of how an effective therapy, especially a rapidly effective therapy is progressing.

The objective and placebo free Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is a powerful contributor to treatment evaluation and to new treatment discoveries (Callahan, a and b, in this issue). As important as I consider HRV to be, it is not a substitute for SUD. Through a SUD a therapist can assess how well she is helping an individual and/or quickly determine which TFT treatment is needed. Standardized scales cannot come close to the relevance of a SUD when tailoring an effective treatment for an individual with a particular problem, or to discover whether a treatment is doing anything at all which then suggests other TFT procedures. It is defeating to the purpose of any effective therapy to receive inflated or inaccurate reports on SUD and I have, therefore, devised a number of procedures to check on SUD accuracy and will explain and demonstrate these when time or space permits.

Findings Overlooked – The reader will observe that some interesting, reproducible findings for the field of clinical psychology are overlooked or not commented upon by our critics. If self reports were not summarily and automatically dismissed, our critics might have been able to perceive some quite interesting findings in the reports by Dr Sakai et al, (this issue) and Dr Johnson et al (this issue).
It appears that the preconceived notions of our critics prevent them from taking even slight notice of the data presented in these reports, including the objective data of Heart Rate Variability (Callahan 2001a and b, and Pignottie and Steinberg, 2001). I strongly recommend a renovation in the procedures and premises that appear to influence highly trained and highly placed social scientists into an apparent inability to recognize potentially interesting information. At first I thought the problem might be due to an overzealous attachment to the conventional therapies they advocate but on deeper reflection, it may rather be the social soft science procedures themselves that are more generally responsible. I refer to such things as: control groups, tests of statistical significance, questionnaires, and excessive concern over placebo.

TFT with Various HRV Equipment - Our HRV results are not limited to our equipment. For example, Fuller Royal, MD introduced me to HRV and used it in order to evaluate various medical treatments. He came across my phobia algorithm, tried it and found it had a greater impact on his (different than ours) HRV than any other treatment. Royal’s report surprised me but the study by Kawachi et al (1995) on the role of phobic anxiety and HRV helped me make sense of this interesting result. A highly experienced HRV operator in Norway tried one of my algorithms and the HRV change on his equipment, also different than ours, was so dramatic he thought something must have gone wrong with his equipment. He found it was the TFT responsible for the changes and his equipment was fine. An experienced HRV operator in Colorado reported that he too had an unprecedented and very surprising change on his HRV equipment after trying my algorithm for anger on a difficult client. A physician in Japan reported dramatic changes in HRV on his still different HRV equipment. We thus have reports of unprecedented dramatic change on four different HRV instruments as a result of TFT.
An important point introduced by Professor Kline is “… we don’t know whether any changes, …would have been mediated by sympathetic and/or parasympathetic nervous systems.” An HRV report yields many interesting indices; we chose to present the SDNN scores for this is the measure of variability itself and SDNN is the index used to predict death and vulnerability to problems (Callahan, a and b, this issue). SDNN is the most stable score in HRV and the most resistant to change. After my HRV papers were submitted, I had a personal meeting (Malik, 2000) with an authority on HRV, Professor Marek Malik (1998 and Malik and Camm (1995), in London. A year earlier, I had sent him a sample of five cases where we had dramatic increases in SDNN. Malik took note of our unusually large increases in SDNN a year later (after our personal meeting) and he checked to make certain that SDNN was not increased at the expense of increasing the sympathetic nervous system. After examining the records of this sample, Malik concluded: “[The large increases in SDNN] … were not likely due to increased sympathetic activity (Malik, 2000).” As profound and unprecedented improvements of SDNN become more common it will be important to ensure that the increase of SDNN not be at “the expense of increasing the sympathetic nervous system (Malik, 2000).” Since TFT rapidly eliminates general stress as well as varied psychological problems, it is not surprising that we found the autonomic nervous system is typically put into better balance after successful TFT treatment.
Herbert and Gaudiano suggest movement might influence HRV scores measured with the photoplethysmyograph (PPG.) instrument. Most of our tests were done with electrocardiograph (ECG) methods but those who used PPG had their subjects sit still for the five minutes of the test (treatment was never done during a test). Giardino (2001) did a comparison of PPG with ECG and found the results were comparable when the subject is at rest.
I believe the reason that HRV is not as well known as it ought to be, given its relevance and importance to life and health, is due to the fact that it is so difficult to improve the highly stable SDNN score. Low SDNN scores are especially difficult or impossible to improve. It is our hope that TFT and other effective therapies, with further research, will change the dismal perception of HRV as a hopeless predictor of death into a positive and powerful predictor of life.
Relaxation - A number of serious and sophisticated professional observers who have witnessed dramatic improvements due to TFT, have commented that the positive change is due to relaxation. Before TFT, I used to teach Progressive Relaxation to clients over a period of months at a time. I found when the client had severe psychological problems it was simply impossible to teach them to relax. In fact, I never saw anyone reach the sublime state of relaxation as depicted in the book. It is true that our clients are relaxed after my brief treatment and they spontaneously report this fact. However, it is the rapid elimination of their psychological problem, as revealed by their rapidly dwindling SUD, that caused them to relax, and not the other way around.

Demand Characteristics - Of the criticisms presented by our academic colleagues, the most puzzling to me is the charge re demand characteristics, i.e., that most paying clients try to please their therapists by reporting falsely that they are getting better. I have been doing psychotherapy for half a century and I can state with confidence that paying clients are not particularly disposed to please therapists nor do they need to please us. It is rather the therapists, who must please their clients by actually helping them. It is the clients who afford therapists a living. If experience in therapy research is largely with professors treating students then I recognize that this is quite a different situation. In this context, it might be noted that TFT is successful with horses, dogs, cats, infants, and very young children and it does not seem likely that demand characteristics operate in these domains either.

Statistical Tests of “Significance”- I am not impressed with psychotherapy studies that rely on tests of statistical significance. As the statistician put it (1992, p19), “If the researcher finds that she/he must use refined statistical tests to reveal whether there are differences, the differences do not matter much.” I am afraid this statement characterizes research on conventional therapies. The minimal differences obtained between groups do not matter much.
Also, I object to the adjective “significance” being smuggled into the public mind, falsely implying that the therapy has clinical significance and leading people, evidently even trained professionals, to believe that the authority of science is speaking. I propose that all therapy studies relying on tests of significance need to be re-examined. I propose also that all therapies should be tested with HRV. Statistical significance is far from good enough. The world and clinical psychology need clinically significant treatments and further, the world desperately needs treatments that minimize suffering for hapless clients.

Placebos - I have been doing psychotherapy for over a half-century. Throughout my career, I would try almost anything to attempt to help a suffering client, including using placebos. I was a pioneer and a fellow in clinical hypnosis. Although I heard and read a lot about placebo I never personally saw a client cured with a placebo or with suggestion. I believe the very concept of placebo is questionable. Scholars are also questioning the so-called placebo effect. After reviewing over 800 of the early studies on placebo: “The authors conclude that the literature relating to the magnitude and frequency of the placebo effect is unfounded and grossly overrated, if not entirely false. (Kienle and Kiene, 1996, p39)” A Danish investigator, Asbjorn Hrbjartsson (2001) is currently developing an even stronger case against placebo. Hrbjartsson’s work is cited on the web of an unusually fair and knowledgeable advocate for placebo. (Brody and Brody, 2000)

Control Groups - In light of the findings discussed in this series of papers, clinical psychologists must consider what conditions or circumstances obviate the need for a control group. I propose that for any treatment with a 75% success rate or above, a control group is not required in order to know something is taking place (see, e.g., Johnson, in this issue). A conservative group of neurologists, discussing how to evaluate treatments for multiple sclerosis made the following comment: "A completely effective treatment would stop worsening in all cases, probably produce improvement in most patients, and would be easy to recognize and a controlled trial of therapy would not be necessary (my emphasis). They add that a minimum impact therapy requires a control group and treatment with placebo: “The recognition of a partially (my emphasis) effective treatment requires the use of control patients treated simultaneously with placebo." (Sibley and The Therapeutic Claims Committee, 1996, p16). The principles are relevant to treating any condition.

TFT and Hard Science - I believe that TFT results may be much closer to hard science than the usual psychological treatments. The success rate of TFT, i.e., the predictions made by TFT at our highest level of performance, appear to be on a par with experiments in physics and chemistry (see Callahan and Callahan, 2000, p59).
McNally attributes our reported success in treating diverse problems presented in our papers, only to “uncontrolled demand characteristics, therapist expectancy, and non specific placebo effects.” The overlooked common feature of these diverse problems is stress (Porges et al, 1994) . Stress leads to heart problems and other illnesses. HRV can reasonably be considered a measure of the impact of stress on the person. Please see my discussion of the observations of Dardik (Callahan, b, this issue), regarding the numerous problems reflected by HRV. Also see Porges’ (1995) finding that circumcision creates stress in infants as indicated by HRV. Another very interesting recent study suggesting the role of stress in pediatrics finds sepsis in infants predictable and can be identified before it happens by low HRV (Griffin and Moorman, 2001).

Tertullian’s Motto - In his paper, Professor McNally of Harvard refers to the shared joke with a biological psychiatrist of the seeming absurdity of my treatment. Professor Kline, of Florida State University, also joins in the humor and finds it difficult to distinguish our observations from “farce.” I have grown used to these kinds of reactions over the last 22 years. Virtually everyone now doing TFT once had a similar laugh over my unusual appearing treatment. But, for those who have actually tried my treatments the “Ha, ha” changes into “Ah, ha!” Koestler (1964) pointed out: “The history of science abounds with examples of discoveries greeted with howls of laughter because they seemed to be a marriage of incompatibles – until the marriage bore fruit and the alleged incompatibility of the partners turned out to derive from prejudice. …Comic discovery is paradox stated – scientific discovery is paradox resolved (p95).” Etienne Kline’s (1996) book also emphasizes the role of paradox in scientific discovery.

Mere Passage of Time and Regression To the Mean on HRV - McNally suggests that the changes supported by HRV that we report for conditions such as severe depression, anxiety, fatigue, anger, and toothache “could have occurred with the mere passage of time.” This notion strikes me as farcical when “the passage of time” is but a matter of minutes. When a therapy takes place over weeks, months, or years then perhaps one is entitled to reasonably speak of the “mere passage of time.”
It is recently reported that HRV scores that are abnormally high is also a predictor of death as well as scores that are too low (de Bruyne, et al, 1999) Such extreme scores are hazardous because they are stable; this is why they can predict death. The statistical artifact “regression to the mean” would be welcomed in such cases if relevant, but it is not. This idea reminds me of someone going on an automobile trip when the gas tank reads “empty” and they are hoping that regression to the mean will cause the tank to suddenly supply additional gas. It is quite significant and of special theoretical interest that TFT not only increases HRV when it is too low, but also can decrease HRV that is excessively high. This interesting fact shows that the drive for health, or health attractor, can result in people responding powerfully and rapidly if only the correct treatment is given. If “regression to the mean” were a such a powerful factor in HRV scores, then low (or overly high) HRV scores would not present the serious problem they bespeak – one would only have to wait for time to pass and an HRV re-test in order to get better. Alas, it doesn’t work that way. Low and hazardous HRV scores, as I documented (Callahan, a, in this issue) and as investigators have shown, Van Hoogenhuyze et al), are among the most stable and most difficult to improve. The Van Hoogenhuyze et al study is illustrative for it shows the individual scores of 55 men and the exact changes in retest may be examined. The authors comment that “Heart rate variability values in the range associated with increased risk of mortality showed less day-to-day variation (i.e., were more reproducible) than the high heart rate variability values in normal subjects (my emphases). (Van Hoogenhuyze, 1996, p1672).
Lohr is quite correct in stating that “other effective treatments” are not cited for improving HRV. In all of the literature we have searched on HRV, we find nothing that compares to the improvements in HRV generated by TFT. Please also consider the roles of “mere passage of time” and ”regression to the mean” in the recent important study done on depression with heart patients (Carney et al, 2000). Depression can be a serious problem for heart patients. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) was administered to the patients. The post-therapy measures of HRV were taken after up to 16 CBT sessions. The exact amount of time is not mentioned but it takes considerably more time to do 16 CBT sessions than the minutes it takes to do TFT. Despite this passage of time as well as the possibility of regression to the mean in this study, the SDNN got slightly lower after 16 CBT sessions. The impact of CBT, plus the passage of time, and the regression toward the mean had little or no effect on SDNN. The SDNN was so poor (minus 4.5%) after CBT treatment as to lead the authors (after Nolan, 1998) to speculate that depression may generate a deep, permanent and harmful biological effect on the mechanisms responsible for the variability of the heart.
To informally check the alarming idea that depression can cause permanent and irreparable biologic harm, I looked at 8 cases of severe depression treated with TFT and for whom HRV scores were taken before and after TFT. The average change in SDNN after TFT for depression was plus 85% compared to a minus 4% with CBT (Callahan, 2001,c). Please note that we are not comparing the 24 hour scores used by Carney et al to our 5 minute scores; we are comparing the % of change in SDNN as a result of treatment. Naturally, our informal work must be repeated and we most emphatically encourage others to do this since if our results are replicated it could have profound implications for people with depression, heart problems, and most especially for those who have both.
Conventional treatments have led to or supported more than one pessimistic conclusion and TFT appears to be progressively overturning some of these (see LeDoux’s concept of “indelibility” in Callahan,b and LeDoux et al, (1989); also see the APA Science Directorate Report on the matter of whether phobias are curable (Adler, 1993; Rutter, 1994, Callahan, 1985).

Kosovo - Dr Rosner raises some pertinent questions that require some clarification. Before the war ended Johnson successfully treated trauma at the Kosovo refugee camp in Oslo, Norway. Impressed with TFT, the two ethnic Albanian directors of the camp asked Johnson to lead a relief mission to Kosovo itself, after the war. They were escorts on the first trip, introducing Johnson to their Kosovar physician friends who would become his translators and co-authors of this report (Johnson et al, this issue). Dr Johnson responds: “Treatment was given to everyone who was referred by a physician or who requested it on their own. More than a year had already passed since the precipitating traumatic events, so comparison to first year spontaneous recovery is not relevant. Physician translators compiled a list of traumas for each patient, who was then treated by therapists, trained in TFT causal diagnosis, with additional translation from these physicians. The full procedure, including translations, took as much as an hour or even two, but the TFT itself (causal diagnosis and treatment) ranged from 5 to 20 minutes. Awareness of cultural values and traditions was crucial to the therapeutic success in Kosovo. It determined the preferred setting for therapy, the decision to bypass traditional diagnostic evaluations and the intentional selection of a relatively superficial means of evaluating changes. “Whenever possible, treatment was provided within the context of the nuclear family, in their living room or at the picnic table in the yard. Usually several extended family members were included. It was always intimate and respectful. At no time was there a public display of treatment in front of all the people of a village, as Dr Rosner imagines. Positive expectancy effects would have been a pleasant surprise, as skepticism of TFT was as large in Kosovo as everywhere else. Even our Albanian physicians were skeptical at first. However, April 2, 2001, an office was opened in Kosovo by our Albanian physician friends, no longer skeptics, for the practice of TFT (Johnson, 2001).”
We sincerely appreciate the criticisms of our work; though we reject some we are grateful for all. We hope some of our suggestions will be considered and we plan to benefit from the many criticisms we received.

REFERENCES
Adler, T., November, (1993). Studies look at ways to keep fear at bay: Science Directorate report. Amer Psychol Assoc, Monitor, 24(11), 17.
Brody, H and Brody, D. (2000) The Placebo Response. New York: Cliff Street Books (Harper Collins).
Callahan, R. (1985). The Five Minute Phobia Cure. Wilmington: Enterprise.
Callahan, R. (1997). Thought Field Therapy: The Case of Mary: Electronic Journal of Traumatology, 3 (1), Article 5.
Callahan, R (in press, 2001,a) The impact of TFT on heart rate variability (HRV) Journal of Clinical Psychology, (this issue).
Callahan, R (in press, 2001,b) Raising and lowering heart rate variability (HRV). Journal of Clinical Psychology, (this issue).
Callahan, R (2001,c) Objective evidence for the superiority of TFT in the treatment of depression. The Thought Field, vol 6, Issue 4, pp1-2.
Carney, RM; Freedland, KE; Stein, PK; Skala, JA; Hoffman, P; Jaffe, AS. (2000) Change in heart rate and heart rate variability during treatment for depression in patients with coronary heart disease. Psychosom Med, Sept; 62,(5): 639-647.
de Bruyne, M., Kors, J., Hoes, A., Klootwijk, P., Dekker, J., Hofman, A., van Bemmel, J. (1999). Both decreased and increased heart rate variability on the standard 10 second electrocardiogram predict cardiac mortality in the elderly: the Rotterdam Study. American Journal of Epidemiology, 150(12), 1282-1288.
Dekker, J., Crow, R., Folsom, A., Hannan, P., Liao, D., Sweene, C., Schouten, E. (2000). Low heart rate variability in a 2-minute rhythm strip predicts risk of coronary heart disease and mortality from several causes: the ARIC study. Circulation, 102: 1239-1244.
Feynman, R (1999) The Pleasure of Finding Things Out. Cambridge: Perseus.
Giardino, N (2001) A comparison of the finger plesthysmograph to ECG. (unpublished study) Rutgers U, Psychology.
Griffin MP; Moorman JR (2001).Toward the early diagnosis of neonatal sepsis and sepsis-like illness using novel heart rate analysis. Pediatrics. Jan;107(1):97-104 (ISSN: 1098-4275)
Hrbjartsson, A (2001) Placebo questioned in talk at conference at Harvard School for Public Health, Dec 10, 1999. On Brody’s web:www.innerpharmacy.com/news.htm
Johnson, C (2001) Personal communication.
Johnson, C, Shala, M, Sejdijaj, X, Odell, R, Dabishevci, K (in press) Thought Field Therapy: Soothing the bad moments of Kosovo. Journal of Clinical Psychology, (this issue).
Kawachi, I., Sparrow, D., Vokonas, P., & Weiss, S. (1995). Decreased heart rate variability in men with phobic anxiety (data from the Normative Aging Study). Am J Cardiol, 75(14), 882‑885.
Kienle, G.S. and Kiene, H. (1996) Placebo effect and placebo concept: a critical methodological and conceptual analysis of reports on the magnitude of the placebo effect. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, 2(6) 39-53.
Kline, E (1996) Conversations with the Sphinx: Paradoxes in Physics. London: Souvenir Press.
Koestler, A (1964) The Act of Creation. NY: Arkana
LeDoux, JE, Romanski, LM, and Xagoraris, AE (1989). Indelibility of subcortical emotional memories. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 1, 238-243.
Malik, M & Camm, J (Eds.) (1995) Heart Rate Variability. Armonk, NY: Futura Publishing Company.
Malik, M.(ed) (1998) Clinical Guide to Cardiac Autonomic Tests. Kluwer, Academic Publishers, Boston.
Malik, Marek (2000) Personal meeting in London in October.
Nolan, J, Batin, P, Andrews, R, Lindsay, S, Brooksby, P, Mullen, M, Bair, W, Flapan, A, Cowley, A, Prescott, R, Nelson, J, Fox, K (1998) Change in heart rate and heart rate variability during treatment for depression in patients with coronary heart disease. Psychosom Med, Sept: 62, (5); 639-647.
Pignotti, M and Steinberg, M (2001) Heart rate variability as an outcome measure for thought field therapy in clinical practice. Journal of Clinical Psychology, (this issue).
Porges, S.W., Doussard-Roosevelt, J.A., Portales, A.L.,& Suess, P.E. (1994). Cardiac vagal tone: Stability and relation to difficultness in infants and three-year-old children. Dev. Psychobiol. 27: 289-300.
Porges, S (1995). Cardiac vagal tone: A physiological index of stress. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Review. Vol 19, No 2, pp 225-233.
Ringertz, N (2000) Alfred Noble’s health: his interest in medicine. Karolinska Institute. http://www.nobel.se/nobel/alfred-nobel/biographical/ringertz/
Rosen, G and Davison, C (2001) Echo attributions and other risks when publishing on novel therapies without peer review. Journal of Clinical Psychology, (this issue).
Rutter, V.(1994). Oops! A very embarrassing story. Psychology Today, March/April.
Sagan, C (1996) The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. NY: Random House.
Sakai, C, Paperny, D. Mathews, M, Tanida, G, Boyd, G, Simons, A, Yamamoto, C, Mau, C, Nutter, L (2001) Thought Field Therapy Clinical Applications: Utilization in an HMO in behavioral medicine and behavioral health service. Journal of Clinical Psychology, (this issue).
Sandmaier, M and Cooper, G (2000) Telling it like it is. Networker, pages 13-18
Sibley, WA and The Therapeutic Claims Committee (1996) Therapeutic Claims in Multiple Sclerosis: Guide to Treatment, 4th Edition, Vermande, NY: Demos
Simon, J (1992) Resampling: The New Statistics. Arlington, VA: Resampling Stats, Inc.
Van Hoogenhuyze, D., Weinstein, N., Martin, G., Weiss, J., Schaad, J., Sahyouni, X., Fintel, D., Remme, W., & Singer, D. (1991). Reproducibility and relation to mean heart rate of heart rate variability in normal subjects and in patients with congestive heart failure secondary to coronary artery disease. American Journal of Cardiology, 68, 1668‑1676.

Acknowledgments
I am very grateful to the busy psychologists who took the time to read and respond critically to our TFT papers. Criticism of new ideas and findings is very much needed and most welcomed and appreciated. I am especially thankful to Editor Larry Beutler for inviting me to submit some papers on TFT. I also want to express my appreciation to Hether Brown the editor’s helpful assistant. I want to thank the authors of these TFT papers for their work, their considerable help, and for suggestions in formulating my response. Special thanks go to Monica Pignotti whose many suggestions were especially helpful. The TFT authors and I wish to dedicate our papers to the memory of Yoshinori Takasaki, MD, physician and clinical psychologist, of Wakayama, Japan who suffered a long illness and who died during the writing of these papers. Even during his illness, Yoshi was teaching TFT. Dr Takasaki, was a brilliant and highly esteemed creative pioneer in TFT, an authority on HRV, and a much-loved friend.

LAWS OF NATURE

2007-04-14T12:55:00.000-07:00

Fascinating!

LAWS OF NATURE by Phiya Kushi Back

©The Macrobiotic Guide - December 2005

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30 MACROBIOTIC PRINCIPLES
The Natural Laws of Life and Change

I think that one of the most seriously misunderstood aspects of macrobiotics is the “Laws of Nature”
(also known as the “Order of the Universe” or the “Unifying Principle”).

Part of the problem lies in the fact that these laws have always been presented within the context of macrobiotics and therefore are seen only to apply to health and dietary practices. However, the intentions of George Ohsawa and his followers like Michio were to introduce something far more profound than just a classification for food and healing.

First, one must remember that Ohsawa originally introduced these ideas in the early 1930s when the atomic age was just beginning. The science and philosophy of the West dominated the world. Thus like missionary Catholic forefathers from before, Western leaders colonized the world in the hopes of liberating the unenlightened Oriental and primitive cultures with rationale scientific thought.

Japan embraced such views with wide open arms discarding tens of thousands of years of ancient traditions that were much older than anything developed in the West. This new scientific world view was based on Newtonian physics and the linear logic of Decartes. Einstein’s idea of relativity was still theoretical.

Before Einstein’s “E=mc2” matter was considered matter and energy was energy and the . . . . more>> LAWS OF NATURE

Brain Can Learn Fear By Seeing Others’ Fears

2007-03-21T03:26:00.000-07:00

By Andrea ThompsonLiveScience Staff Writerposted: 20 March 2007

Whether you get stung by a bee or simply watch as a friend gets stung, you might start to run and hide every time a bee buzzes across your path. A new study reveals why you do this: It turns out the brain areas that respond when fear is learned through personal experience are also triggered when we see someone else afraid.

The finding, detailed in the March issue of the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, could explain why some people are afraid of things like spiders and snakes despite little contact with them.

Fear learning
Study participants watched a short video of a person conditioned to fear a so-called neutral stimulus—something people normally wouldn’t fear—paired with something they find naturally aversive, in this case an electrical shock.

The person in the video watched colored squares on a computer screen: When a blue square appeared, the person received a mild shock; when a yellow square appeared, there was no shock. The participant in the video responded with distress when the blue square appeared—he would blink hard, tense his cheek muscles, and move his hand.

“So it’s clear that he’s uncomfortable, he’s in distress,” said study team member Andreas Olsson of Columbia University. “And he’s already in distress before he receives the shock, you see him anticipate receiving the shock.”

By contrast, the participant in the video appeared relaxed when the yellow square popped up.
Participants were told they would take part in a similar experiment, and when presented with the blue square, they responded with fear, anticipating a shock, though they were never actually shocked.

“Just by watching, they learn themselves,” Olsson explained.
The fear response of the subjects was measured by how much they sweated (lie detector tests operate in a similar way).

Brain response
This secondhand learning was reflected in the brain. In previous classical conditioning experiments where a fear is learned first-hand, a part of the brain called the amygdala has been shown to be critical to the development and expression of fears.

The scientists monitored the brain activity of each participant during the experiment. Imaging showed that the amygdala responded both when the subjects watched the video of someone else receiving shocks and when they were presented with the blue squares themselves.
“We found that the amygdala is involved both when you’re watching somebody receiving shocks, and when you’re expecting to receive shocks later on yourself,” Olsson said.
So it seems that similar processes in the brain are triggered both when fears are experienced first-hand and when they are observed in others.

In the real world
The findings could help explain why people are afraid of things in scary movies or why a child learns to fear snakes, spiders or even people of other races after seeing their parents’ fearful responses.
“You learn by observing other people’s emotional expressions, and what we are showing is that that can be as effective as having those direct experiences yourself,” Olsson said. “That’s probably one of the reasons why a lot people are having phobias of certain kinds of stimuli, such as snakes and spiders.”

Taking Responsibility - Taking Action

2007-03-19T10:31:00.000-07:00

Assertiveness... Being clear, direct, responsive and responsible
Confidence... Knowing your own worth and abilities
Teamwork... Feeling connected, included and empowered
Information... Skilfully gathering High Value Information
Objectivity... Able to step back despite impassioned interest
Nurture... Respecting different needs and aspirations

Be Still My Beating Heart!

2007-03-18T11:08:00.000-07:00

Trying to quell the jitters? Try this: Blow on your thumb.

The vagus nerve, which governs heart rate, can be controlled through breathing, says Ben Abo, an emergency medical- services specialist at the University of Pittsburgh. It'll get your heart rate back to normal.

heart rate, jitters, vagus nerve

Apologies for the Crimes of History

2007-03-17T14:38:00.000-07:00

This is extraordinary!!

HNN Articles

Virginia Apologizes For Slavery, Now It’s Congress' Turn By Earl Ofari Hutchinson
Turkey should follow Germany's example ... and deal with its history By Daniel Goldhagen
Brown University Taking Heat for even Considering Slavery Reparations By Alan Power
Japan Is Finally Facing the Issue of Slave Labor in World War IIBy Minami Norio
Europeans Were Sent to U.S. Internment Camps During WW II, too By Michelle Malkin
Neither Britain Nor Russia Could Have Saved the Warsaw Uprising By Eve-Ann Prentice
Germany Demands Apology From Queen For Wartime Air Raids By Luke Harding
Total War And World War II Raids On Dresden By Johann Hari
Knights Templar Ask Vatican For Apology By Ruth Gledhill
King Juan Carlos Snubs Moorish Plea For Apology By Isambard Wilkinson
Does the Vatican Owe an Apology to Muslims for the Crusades? By Robert Spencer
The Roots of Japan-Korea Conflict By Alexis Dudden and Mark Selden
A ‘Sorry’ excuse from Cochrane By William Raspberry
Poland apologizes for damage troops inflicted on Babylon
Japan's Atomic Bomb Victims Complain that Their Government Still Neglects Them & Refuses to Take Responsibility
Korean WWII sex slaves fight on
Decades After Abuses by the Japanese, Guam Hopes the U.S. Will Make Amends
Japan apologizes on WWII anniversary
Koizumi Apologizes for War; Embraces China and South Korea
Why Japan Has to Keep Apologizing By Gavan McCormack
Japanese Textbooks, Koizumi, Sex Slaves & the Nightmare of Nanking By Rhawn Joseph
Czech govt apologizes to victimized anti-Nazi German
After Decades, Latin American Nations Focus on Rights Abuses
Company admits slave history
The Strange Record of 15 Years of Japan-North Korea Negotiations By Gavan McCormack and Wada Haruki
U.S. Apologizes in WWII 'Gold Train' Case

Neuro Electric Therapy evidence

2007-03-17T14:02:00.000-07:00

Mealy mouthed medics are saying there's not enough evidence, but read what happend 30 years ago!
Neuro-electric therapy (N.E.T.) in drug addiction: interim report Sections
Abstract Discussion
Details
Author: Margaret A. PATTERSON,1 M.B.E., F.R.C.S.E., M.B.Ch.B. London, England

Abstract
An interim report is presented of an in-depth study of the effects of neuro-electric therapy in the treatment of drug addiction. It prevents withdrawal symptoms and appears to remove the craving for the drug of addiction. The long-term results are significantly better in those who receive even a short period of in-patient therapy, than in those who receive out-patient therapy only.

The treatment of drug addiction be electro-acupuncture was described by Dr. Wen,1in Hong Kong in 1973, following on a visit to China in 1972 to study the techniques used there. He had started investigating electro-acupuncture in order to use it a sanalgesia in his operations, when some of the patients on whom he was experimenting volunteered the fact that after 40 minutes of electro-acupuncture, they lost their desire for heroin. (Hong Kong has a massive drug problem and it is estimated that an average of 15 per cent of the hospital's surgical patients were opiate addicts.)

The author had been involved with drug addicts on a personal level for several years, because her husband was investigating, filming and writing about the drug problem in the Far East on a political and sociological level. The author was therefore able to help Dr. Wen find addicts who were willing to be treated for their drug dependency, and it was established that:
A 40-minute treatment with electro-acupuncture consistently stopped all withdrawal symptoms for a period of time;

repeated treatments over a 10-day period, according to the addicts, completely removed the desire of the addicts to take their drug of addiction.

Dr. Wen reported on the first 40 cases in the Asian Journal of Medicine[1] ; a single case was also described in detail by Dr. Sainsbury in the Medical Journal of Australia[2] and his results were witnessed by independent psychiatrists.

It is significant that over 100 cases treated in Hong Kong before the author left there to return to the United Kingdom in July 1973, received no counselling whatsoever, no social support, no psychotherapy. In fact, their presence in the surgical wards (no other hospital beds being available) was deeply resented by the overworked surgical nurses; also the doctors treating them, all surgeons, were frequently unavailable. In spite of this, there was complete success in taking them off their drugs without any medication.

When some patients developed acute withdrawal symptoms while no doctor was available, the symptoms ceased within 15 to 20 minutes of the commencement of a treatment. No follow-up of these patients has been published so far, nor of patients who are being treated by the same method in other centres in Australia, the United States of America and the Far East [3] .

1The author was Head of Surgery in the 850-bed Chinese Hospital in Hong Kong, of which Dr. Wen was neuro-surgical consultant.

new therapy for heroin addicts blocked!

2007-03-17T13:57:00.000-07:00

EDDIE BARNES ( mailto:ebarnes@scotlandonsunday.com?subject=Health), February 4, 2007
HEALTH chiefs are blocking a revolutionary treatment for heroin addicts because of their "obsession" with the replacement drug methadone, experts claimed last night.
Scotland on Sunday can reveal that officials are refusing to offer the treatment, known as neuro-electric therapy (NET) to Scotland's 20,000 addicts, claiming they need more proof that it works.

But organisers of an unprecedented trial of NET which took place last week, funded by artist and former addict Peter Howson, have now claimed their real reason is to save face over methadone.
They say methadone is ruining the lives of thousands of addicts across Scotland, condemning them to modern-day "slavery".
The row has broken out in the wake of the trial, held at a secret location in Scotland, which appears to have successfully weaned two hardened Scots addicts off heroin and methadone within the space of a week.

The men claim their lives had been ruined by having been put on the highly addictive methadone, and that only through NET had they managed to come off drugs.
NET works by sending electric pulses into the brain which help to release endorphins - the body's natural pain killers. Backers say it reduces the intense pain caused by withdrawal by as much as 80%.

Doubts over methadone re-emerged late last year after a new study showed that only 3% of heroin addicts had managed to kick their habits after being prescribed the replacement.
The concerns prompted First Minister Jack McConnell to ask health officials at the Chief Scientist Office to study NET as an alternative to methadone.
But any hope the treatment might be used has now disappeared. Scotland on Sunday has obtained details of a series of meetings held last year at which, according to NET backers, officials sought to obstruct their proposals.

First, the CSO declared that "insufficient information" was available to enable it to take it on. At a subsequent meeting in November, it then decided that NET should be trialled on nicotine - an exercise which backers say will be a waste of time because it will prove nothing about heroin. A large-scale trial is required before the NHS will adopt a new treatment, but the NET backers say the bureaucratic hurdles imposed by the CSO have left them with no hope of continuing.
Lorne Patterson - whose mother Dr Meg Patterson invented the treatment - said: "They are not a proactive organisation. If a research proposal is put to them then they consider it, but they are not going to go out of their way to find evidence."

Patterson added: "There is huge difficulty in getting them to accept that the responsibility is theirs to get this to start."
John Mullen, director of the Third Step charity, which organised the NET trial last week, said: "The people who talk it down are the very ones who promoted methadone. Methadone has been a complete disaster but those people behind it are not going to let their reputations be tarnished."

The two addicts who successfully completed the NET trial last week said that the therapy had helped them through the cold turkey phase.
One of the men, Alan Lindsay from Glasgow, said: "It has been tough but this is about 80% better [than cold turkey]. You don't get the cravings as bad as you do when you're not on the machine. Then you just can't control it. You are rattling - you would go through a brick wall to get a hit."

The other addict, Glenn Keys from Motherwell, who has been on drugs for a decade, added: "This week has got me over the withdrawals which I could never had done before. The therapy stops the worst withdrawals. I wouldn't be able to do anything if I hadn't had this box on."
Mullen added: "If we could keep this up, I believe that in six months' time, I could bring 100 former addicts to Edinburgh and show the MSPs: here are 100 people who have been brought off heroin."

A source close to the First Minister admitted that the health chiefs had the final say over the matter. "Part of the problem is that for this to be approved for widescale use, you have to go through trials in order for doctors to accept it. The First Minister has given it his political support, but we need more to get it used more widely," the source said.

But a spokesman for the Scottish Executive denied that the CSO was blocking the treatment: "We are not slowing down the evaluation process. Advice from experts was that small-scale preparatory studies designed to test the basic method might be the best starting point, possibly initially based on nicotine."

However, backers said they would not be giving up the fight.
Maxie Richards, a longstanding campaigner against drug misuse in Glasgow, said: "When you are on methadone, you can't work; you can't drive; it is a minor sedative so you can't work with machinery. You can't get away because you have to go to the chemist every day. I thought William Wilberforce got rid of slavery 200 years ago, but we have a whole new generation of slaves here in our midst."

On NET, she added: "Everything is being stalled. They [the CSO] are not prepared to act because the general public don't know the whole story. They are stalling. If they wanted a big trial they could."
'I believe it works because I have seen it work'

HE WAS sitting on the front steps, concentrating hard on his roll-up and not on the electrodes positioned behind his ears.
Ronald McLelland had had his last fix of heroin earlier that day and was feeling understandably nervous about his new role as medical guinea-pig in the trial of NET.

"I've been using eight years - three bags a day - and I have done everything an addict does to feed my habit," he said. "I have stolen off my parents and friends. I have held a knife to other addicts' throats to get their heroin. I have held knives to the throats of people in the street to get money to buy drugs. I have been to jail. I lost my brother to an overdose. So there is nothing I don't know about this life."

The 26-year-old from Ayrshire gestured to the battery pouch attached to his waist and the wires leading up to his ears.
"That's why I think this is my last chance of getting clean. I have a three-year-old daughter I haven't seen since she was eight months and I want to get my life back."
McLelland was one of the six hard-core addicts who last week volunteered to take part in the trial of NET at a Lanarkshire farmhouse.

They had been fitted with the equipment by Lorne Patterson, whose mother Meg developed the technique in the 1970s and is alleged to have treated rock star Eric Clapton among other well-known musicians of the era.
In the absence of large-scale medical trials, the technique has been kept alive by her family in isolated clinics around the world. Meg Patterson eventually settled in Lanarkshire before she died and a friend has now loaned his farmhouse for the trial.

The six male addicts who arrived last week - six women will be treated later this month - were individually fitted with the electrodes, held in place behind their ears with tape.
Although four of them, including McLelland, left the centre after a few days, the treatment is gradually gaining support. The theory is that a small charge of electric current from the battery pack will restore the balance of chemicals in the brain that have been severely disrupted by addiction.

The NET device is switched on constantly and all wearers feel is a slight tingling sensation. When drug cravings appear, the current is turned up and the sensation should subside. Supporters of the technique claim cravings are reduced by up to 80% over a period of six to 10 days as long as the device is worn and used throughout that period.

A Scottish doctor associated with the trial said: "I believe it works because I have seen it work. Putting people on methadone just gives them two addictions. But it isn't a cure.
"This works by reducing the cravings. It means that when an addict wakes up in the morning his or her first thought is not 'where do I get my fix?' It makes them much more amenable to counselling and finally breaking the vicious circle for good."

The addicts stay in the farmhouse, in a secluded location overlooking beautiful Lanarkshire countryside, for up to 10 days.
Their withdrawal from drugs is overseen by a medical doctor. All enter with the knowledge that however bad their cravings get, no drugs will be available. Part of the deal, if they stay the course, is that they will either live with their families in the immediate aftermath or enter a rehabilitation centre to ensure they stay off drugs.

John Mullen, one of the organisers. said: "There is no point in them going through this if we are just going to pitch them out alone on to the streets again. We want this to work and keep on working."

Research 1976!

Any thing to do with the topic!

2007-03-17T13:31:00.000-07:00

Apects of Healing

Repetitive Strain Injury

2007-03-17T13:23:00.000-07:00

RSI - Repetitive Strain Injury
RMI - Repetitive Motion Injury
UECTD - Upper Extremity Cumulative Trauma Disorders
WRULD - Work Related Upper Limb Disorder

This disability may be chronic or acute and usually is described as pain caused by overuse of extremities, usually hands and wrists.
www.washington.edu/doit/Brochures/Programs/glossary.html

Administrative Control - Procedures and methods, set up by the employer, that significantly reduce exposure to risk factors by altering the way in which work is performed; examples include employee rotation, job task enlargement, and adjustment of work pace.

Anthropometry- Anthropometry is the branch of the human sciences that deals with body measurements.

Awkward Posture -Posture is the position of the body while performing work activities. Awkward posture is associated with an increased risk for injury. It is generally considered that the more a joint deviates from the neutral (natural) position, the greater the risk of injury.

Specific postures have been associated with injury. For example:

Wrist

Flexion/extension (bending up and down)
Ulnar/radial deviation (side bending)
Shoulder

Abduction/flexion (upper arm positioned out to the side or above shoulder level)
Hands at or above shoulder height
Neck (cervical spine)

flexion/extension or bending the neck forward and to the back
side bending as when holding a telephone receiver on the shoulder
Low back

Bending at the waist, twisting
Cumulative Trauma Disorders (CTDs) - Term used for injuries that occur over a period because of repeated trauma or exposure to a specific body part, such as the back, hand, wrist and forearm. Muscles and joints are stressed, tendons are inflamed, nerves pinched or the flow of blood is restricted. Common occupational induced disorders in this class include carpal tunnel syndrome, epicondylitis (tennis elbow), tendinitis, tenosynovitis, synovitis, stenosing tenosynovitis of the finger, DeQuervian's Syndrome, and low back pain.

Duration - Duration is the length of exposure to a risk factor. It can be measured as the minutes or hours per day the worker is exposed to a risk. Duration can also be viewed as the years of exposure to a risk factor. In general, the greater the duration of exposure to a risk factor, the greater the degree of risk. However, specific duration guidelines have not been established for risk factors such as force, posture and repetition.

Engineering Control - Physical changes to jobs that control exposure to risk. Engineering controls act on the source of the hazard and control employee exposure to the hazard without relying on the employee to take self-protective action or intervention. Examples include: changing the handle angle of a tool, using a lighter weight part, and providing a chair that has adjustability.

Ergonomics - According to Ergoweb: The science of work. Ergonomics removes barriers to quality, productivity, and safe human performance by fitting products, tasks and environments to people.

Ergonomic program - A systematic process for anticipating, identifying, analyzing and controlling ergonomic risk factors.

Force - The amount of muscular effort required to perform a task. Generally, the greater the force, the greater the degree of risk. High force has been associated with Work Related Musculoskeletal Disorders at the shoulder/neck, the low back and the forearm/wrist/hand.

Human Factors - A term synonomous with 'ergonomics', is the branch of this science that began in the US and focuses on cognitive performance of humans.

Lighting - The level of illumination in the workplace. Poor lighting can lead to visual symptoms of eye strain, eye focusing breakdown, eye coordination abnormalities, and eye fatigue while performing select activities such as video display terminal tasks.

Manual Material Handling - Lifting, carrying, and moving materials without mechanical aide.

Motion: Velocity/Acceleration - Velocity/ acceleration is the speed of body part motion and the rate of change of speed of body part motion, respectively. It is generally regarded that increased acceleration leads to increased risk of injury.

Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSD) - Injuries and disorders of the muscles, nerves, tendons, ligaments, joints, cartilage and spinal disc; examples include carpal tunnel syndrome, rotator cuff tendonitis, and tension neck syndrome.

NIOSH - National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. NIOSH is the institution that provides scientific data upon which OSHA makes recommendations.

Occupational Biomechanics - Occupational Biomechanics is a science concerned with the mechanical behavior of muscuskeletal tissues when physical work is performed.

RSI - Repetitive Strain Injury
RMI - Repetitive Motion Injury
UECTD - Upper Extremity Cumulative Trauma Disorders
WRULD - Work Related Upper Limb Disorder

Occupational Illness - Any abnormal condition or disorder, other than one resulting from an occupational injury caused by exposure to factors associated with employment. It includes acute and chronic illnesses or disease which may be caused by inhalation, absorption, ingestion or direct contact. The broad categories of occupational illnesses are skin diseases and disorders, dust diseases of the lungs, respiratory condition due to toxic agents, poisoning (systemic effects of toxic materials), disorders due to physical agents other than toxic materials, and disorders from repeated trauma.

Occupational Injury - Any injury such as a cut, fracture, sprain, amputation, etc., which results from a work-related event or from a single instantaneous exposure in the work environment. Examples of injuries or disorders that can be work related include:

Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS)
Rotator cuff syndrome
De Quervain's disease
Trigger finger
Tarsal tunnel syndrome
Sciatica
Epicondylitis
Tendinitis
Raynaud's phenomenon
Carpet layers knee
Herniated spinal disc
Low back pain
OSHA - Occupational Safety

Labels: RMI, RSI, UECTD, WRULD

The Vagus Nerve

2007-03-17T13:22:00.000-07:00

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Vagus Nerve. The vagus nerve is the longest of the cranial nerve. Its name is derived from Latin meaning "wandering".

True to its name the vagus nerve wanders from the brain stem through organs in the neck, thorax and abdomen.
The nerve exits the brain stem through rootlets in the medulla that are caudal to the rootlets for the ninth cranial nerve. The rootlets form the tenth cranial nerve and exit the cranium via the jugular foramen.
Similar to the ninth cranial nerve there are two sensory ganglia associated with the vagus nerve. They are the superior and inferior vagal ganglia.
The branchial motor component of the vagus nerve originates in the medulla in the nucleus ambiguus. The nucleus ambiguus contributes to the vagus nerve as three major branches which leave the nerve distal to the jugular foramen.
The pharyngeal branch travels between the internal and external carotid arteries and enters the pharynx at the upper border of the middle constrictor muscle. It supplies the all the muscles of the pharynx and soft palate except the stylopharyngeas and tensor palati. These include the three constrictor muscles, levator veli palatini, salpingopharyngeus, palatopharyngeus and palatoglossal muscles.
The superior laryngeal nerve branches distal to the pharyngeal branch and descends lateral to the pharynx. It divides into an internal and external branch. The internal branch is purely sensory and will be discussed later.
The external branch travel to the cricothyroid muscle which it supplies.
The third branch is the recurrent branch of the vagus nerve and it travels a different path on the left and right sides of the body. On the right side the recurrent branch leave the vagus anterior to the subclavian artery and wraps back around the artery to ascend posterior to it.
The right recurrent branch ascends to a groove between the trachea and esophagus. The left recurrent branch leaves the vagus nerve on the aortic arch and loops posterior to the arch to ascend through the superior mediastinum.
The left recurrent branch ascends along a groove between the esophagus and trachea. Both recurrent branches enter the larynx below the inferior constrictor and supply intrinsic muscles of larynx excluding the cricothyroid.
The visceromotor or parasympathetic component of the vagus nerve originates from the dorsal motor nucleus of the vagus in the dorsal medulla. These cells give rise to axons that travel in the vagus nerve. The visceromotor part of the vagus innervates ganglionic neurons which are located in or adjacent to each target organ.
The target organs in the head-neck include glands of the pharynx and larynx (via the pharyngeal and internal branches).
In the thorax branches go to the lungs for bronchoconstriction, the esophagus for peristalsis and the heart for slowing of heart rate.
In the abdomen branches enter the stomach, pancreas, small intestine, large intestine and colon for secretion and constriction of smooth muscle.
The viscerosensory component of the vagus are derived from nerves that have receptors in the abdominal viscera, esophagus, heart and aortic arch, lungs, bronchia and trachea.
Nerves in the abdomen and thorax join the left and right vagus nerves to ascend beside the left and right common carotid arteries.
Sensation from the mucous membranes of the epiglottis, base of the tongue, aryepiglottic folds and the upper larynx travel via the internal laryngeal nerve. Sensation below the vocal folds of the larynx is carried by the recurrent laryngeal nerves.
The cell bodies that give rise to the peripheral processes of the visceral sensory nerves of the vagus are located in the inferior vagal ganglion. The central process exits the ganglion and enters the brain stem to terminate in the nucleus solitarius.
The general sensory components of the tenth cranial nerve conduct sensation from the larynx, pharynx, skin the external ear and external auditory canal, external surface of the tympanic membrane, and the meninges of the posterior cranial fossa.
Sensation from the larynx travels via the recurrent laryngeal and internal branches of the vagus to reach the inferior vagal ganglion.
Sensory nerve fibers from the skin and tympanic membrane travel with auricular branch of the vagus to reach the superior vagal ganglion.
The central processes from both ganglia enter the medulla and terminate in the nucleus of the spinal trigeminal tract.

VNS: Depression: New Treatment

2007-03-17T13:21:00.000-07:00

October 7, 2005
UCSD Team Offers New Surgical Treatment For Severe Depression
By Debra Kain

Major depressive disorder is a very common illness, affecting nearly 18 million Americans and 340 million people worldwide. Treatment-resistant depression is a severe form of the illness that affects 20% of patients with depression.

A team of psychiatrists and neurosurgeons at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Medical Center is the first in the area to offer implantation of a device recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for treating patients with treatment-resistant depression.

Called Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS), the therapy is delivered from a pacemaker-like generator implanted in the chest that sends mild and intermittent electrical pulses through the vagus nerve in the neck to the brain.

The vagus nerve, one of the 12 cranial nerves, serves as the body’s “information highway” connecting the brain to many major organs. Several studies have shown that VNS therapy may modulate neurotransmitters such as serotonin and norepinephrine thought to be involved in mood regulation.

The VNS device itself is very small – perhaps 2 inches in diameter – and, at one ounce, is about the size of a wafer cookie. It is attached to two very thin leads, which are threaded under the skin and connected to the vagus nerve in an hour-long outpatient surgical procedure.

The treatment was approved by the FDA in July of this year as “an adjunctive long-term treatment for chronic or recurrent depression in patients 18 years of age and older who are experiencing a major depressive episode that has not responded adequately to four or more antidepressant treatments.”

Water, water, everywhere!

2007-03-17T13:19:00.001-07:00

The Real Thing? Eau dear!

How important water is compared to Coke (and Diet coke).

Here is some important and potentially useful information.

It may lack the sexiness of NLP or the pizzazz of accelerated learning, and yet it is, for those of us in the richer parts of the world, generally, readily and cheaply available; water!

We all know that water is important but you may not have fully realised how important it is in the context of learning and teaching. Many of the parents I talk to are unaware of these facts. They are also often parenting children who drink lots of carbonated drinks, or drinks containing colourings, additives and sugar.

Even if not news to you, the details set out below are worth printing out and giving to anyone who wants to increase the energy and efficiency of students and teachers.

Sugar not only rots the teeth, of course, but contributes significantly to undulations of energy with concomitant mood swings. Increasingly, we are aware of children’s addictions to certain foodstuffs (I use the term in its loosest sense) and subsequent suffering from allergic reactions. Wheat and dairy in particular can produce allergic and possibly worse reactions.

Gluten is a protein substance left over when starch is removed from cereal grains. It adds cohesiveness to dough, which, along with the very name – gluten - indicates what its effects might be. Casein, a protein precipitated from milk, is used in making plastics and adhesives. Many babies have an early reaction to casein, or at least a derivative, when nurses stick rubber-clad fingers into their mouths, often during the first moments of life!

Three quarters of British people are severely dehydrated. (Perhaps this is statistic applies to half the human race!)
The thirst mechanism is so weak in 37% of British that it is often mistaken for hunger.
Even MILD dehydration will slow down the organic processes that are necessary for life itself, ie one’s metabolism, by as much as 3%.
One glass of water shut down midnight hunger pangs for almost 100% of the dieters studied in a Washington study.
A No 1 trigger of daytime fatigue is the Lack of water.
Preliminary research indicates that 8-10 glasses of water a day could significantly ease back and joint pain for eight out of ten sufferers.
A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on the printed page or a computer screen.
Drinking 5 glasses of water daily decreases the risk of colon cancer by 45%, plus it can slash the risk of breast cancer by 79%, and one is 50% less likely to develop bladder cancer.
How much water do you drink each day?
Is water regularly available and easily accessible for students?

=========COKE===========

No wonder coke tastes soooo good:
1. In many states (in the USA) the highway patrol carries two gallons of Coke in the truck to remove blood from the highway after a car accident.
2. You can put a T-bone steak in a bowl of coke and it will be gone in two days.
3. To clean a toilet: Pour a can of Coca-Cola into the toilet bowl and...Let the “real thing” sit for one hour, then flush clean. The citric acid in Coke removes stains from vitreous china.
4. To remove rust spots from chrome car bumpers: Rub the bumper with a crumpled-up piece of aluminium foil dipped in Coca-Cola.
5. To clean corrosion from car battery terminals: Pour a can of Coca-Cola over the terminals to bubble away the corrosion.
6. To loosen a rusted bolt: Applying a cloth soaked in Coca-Cola to the rusted bolt for several minutes.
7. To bake a moist ham: Empty a can of Coca-Cola into the baking pan, wrap the ham in aluminium foil, and bake. Thirty minutes before the ham is finished, remove the foil, allowing the drippings to mix with the Coke for a sumptuous brown gravy.
8. To remove grease from clothes: Empty a can of coke into a load of greasy clothes, add detergent, And run through a regular cycle. The Coca-Cola will help loosen grease stains. It will also clean road haze from your windshield.

For your information:
1. The active ingredient in Coke is phosphoric acid. Its Ph is 2.8. It will dissolve a nail in about 4days.
2. To carry Coca-Cola syrup (the concentrate) the commercial truck must use the Hazardous material place cards reserved for Highly corrosive materials.
3. The distributors of coke have been using it to clean the engines of their trucks for about 20years!

Still want the Real Thing??

Chakras and the endocrine system

2007-03-17T13:16:00.000-07:00

In Hinduism and in some related Asian cultures, a chakra is thought to be a nexus of metaphysical and/or biophysical energy residing in the human body.

Here is an interesting article, and an exercise, on the Chakras

And there is also a body / mirror system of healing (see other blog), developed by Sir Martin Brofman, Ph. D. who says:

What's a Chakra?
Chakra is a Sanskrit word meaning wheel, or vortex, and it refers to each of the seven energy centers of which our consciousness, our energy system, is composed.
These chakras, or energy centers, function as pumps or valves, regulating the flow of energy through our energy system. The functioning of the chakras reflects decisions we make concerning how we choose to respond to conditions in our life. We open and close these valves when we decide what to think, and what to feel, and through which perceptual filter we choose to experience the world around us.

The chakras are not physical. They are aspects of consciousness in the same way that the auras are aspects of consciousness. The chakras are more dense than the auras, but not as dense as the physical body. They interact with the physical body through two major vehicles, the endocrine system and the nervous system. Each of the seven chakras is associated with one of the seven endocrine glands, and also with a group of nerves called a plexus. Thus, each chakra can be associated with particular parts of the body and particular functions within the body controlled by that plexus or that endocrine gland associated with that chakra.
All of your senses, all of your perceptions, all of your possible states of awareness, everything it is possible for you to experience, can be divided into seven categories. Each category can be associated with a particular chakra. Thus, the chakras represent not only particular parts of your physical body, but also particular parts of your consciousness.

When you feel tension in your consciousness, you feel it in the chakra associated with that part of your consciousness experiencing the stress, and in the parts of the physical body associated with that chakra. Where you feel the stress depends upon why you feel the stress. The tension in the chakra is detected by the nerves of the plexus associated with that chakra, and transmitted to the parts of the body controlled by that plexus. When the tension continues over a period of time, or to a particular level of intensity, the person creates a symptom on the physical level.

The symptom speaks a language that reflects the idea that we each create our reality, and the metaphoric significance of the symptom becomes apparent when the symptom is described from that point of view.

Thus, rather than saying, "I can't see," the person would describe it as keeping themselves from seeing something. "I can't walk," means the person has been keeping themselves from walking away from a situation in which they are unhappy. And so on.
The symptom served to communicate to the person through their body what they had been doing to themselves in their consciousness. When the person changes something about their way of being, getting the message communicated by the symptom, the symptom has no further reason for being, and it can be released, according to whatever the person allows themselves to believe is possible.

Apple Cider Vinegar: Cure Allergies

2007-03-17T13:14:00.000-07:00

The Best Home Remedies to Cure Allergies Fast!

ACV is our #1 favorite cure for stopping most allergies like pollen, dander, dust, animals food, etc. We aren't kidding! We wish more people knew about this amazing home remedy for allergies.

We have found that when apple cider vinegar is taken either as a daily tonic or at the first sign of an allergy (i.e., sinus headache, stuffy nose, watery eyes), one can completely stop the histamine response or allergic reaction.

There are a couple ways you can drink apple cider vinegar. One way is to put 1/8th cup ACV in 8 oz of water and sip it throughout the day. The other method is to gulp the mixture at once.

Sometimes you just have to take this dosage once to stop the allergy and sometimes you need to take it up to three times a day. If taken at the onset of symptoms, allergies will usually disappear between 1 -3 hours after taking the first dose of Apple Cider Vinegar. If you've been experiencing allergies for a day or more, your symptoms will disappear after about 24 hours. If they don't, make sure you continue to take water/vinegar mixture for several days!

We do not find Apple Cider Vinegar Tablets or Capsules to be effective whatsoever in curing allergies, but let us know if you've had better luck!

Recipe: 2 TBLSPOONS (1/8th cup) of organic ACV in 4 oz of H2O, up to 3x/day. Increase amount as necessary being careful to note if heartburn caused. If heartburn, drink milk and lots of water. Our favorite brand of Apple Cider Vinegar is Bragg. Trader Joe's makes a nice organic brand. If Organic is difficult to find in your area, try a name brand like Heinz Apple Cider Vinegar. A more bitter taste, but it still works!

Caveats
Strong taste. Also, some apple cider vinegar brands are very acidic, causing heartburn and yeast infections in women. A mild brand of Apple Cider Vinegar can actually cure yeast infections, however. Odd, no?

Capsules
Be careful if you decide to buy capsules. They are extremely acidic and can easily cause heartburn. You can take about a cup of apple cider vinegar a day of Bragg's Apple Cider Vinegar without getting heartburn.

Vinegar Drops

2007-03-17T13:09:00.000-07:00

Vinegar is sometimes infused with spices or herbs—as here, with oregano.Vinegar is a liquid produced from the fermentation of ethanol in a process that yields its key ingredient, acetic acid.

The acetic acid concentration ranges typically from 4 to 8 percent by volume for table vinegar [1] (typically 5%) and higher concentrations for pickling (up to 18%) although in some countries the minimum strength may be less.

Natural vinegars also contain smaller amounts of tartaric acid, citric acid, and other acids. It has been used since ancient times, and is an important element in Western and European, Asian, and other traditional cuisines of the world.

The word "vinegar" derives from the Old French vin aigre, meaning "sour wine." Louis Pasteur showed in 1864 that vinegar results from a natural fermentation process.