Disability News Weekly Roundup Monday, Jan 13 – Friday Jan 17

Health:

Science Daily—Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia Traced from Genetic Roots to Physical Defect

A team including researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, have discovered that a specific gene may play a major role in the development of a life-threatening birth defect called congenital diaphragmatic hernia, or CDH, which affects approximately one out of every 3,000 live births.

Science Daily—Employment May Lead to Improvement in Autism Symptoms

More independent work environments may lead to reductions in autism symptoms and improve daily living in adults with the disorder, according to a new study released in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. Similar to typically developing adults, vocational activities may serve as a mechanism for providing cognitive and social stimulations and enhance well-being and quality of life.

Policy:

MedPageToday— Delirium: What Are the Options?

As many as two in three patients with delirium may not be recognized as delirious by healthcare professionals, in part because of a lack of validated tools for properly managing delirious patients, or possibly because some practitioners don’t recognize the condition when they see it.

Fox News— Complementary, alternative medicine common with autism

Researchers found that about 39 percent of kids with ASDs and about 30 percent of kids with DDs were receiving some sort of complementary and alternative treatments. The most common of those was dietary supplements, followed by special diets, such as gluten-free. About nine percent of children with ASDs were using some sort of invasive, disproven or potentially unsafe version of complementary and alternative medicine.

The Hill— Advocates bemoan omnibus funding level for NIH

Health research advocates say that despite a funding increase, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) cannot fully pursue its mission under the 2014 omnibus spending package. Advocacy alliance Research!America warned that despite this bump, the funding for the NIH will remain “below the level of scientific opportunity” and suggested the agency will have to forgo some projects as a result.

Science:

CNN—Vision, sound don’t sync for some kids with autism, study suggests

Researchers at Vanderbilt University, in a study published Tuesday in The Journal of Neuroscience, suggest this is something some children with autism experience all the time, because they cannot simultaneously process what their eyes are seeing and their ears are hearing.

Sports:

CNN—Olympian: Brain disorder made me stronger

Meet Julia Clukey, who made the 2010 U.S. Olympic team in luge and is the first alternate for the 2014 team in Sochi. Off the ice, she’s faced many challenges, including surviving brain surgery.

 

Special Interest:

The New York Times—Notes on Blindness

In 1983, after years of deteriorating vision, the writer and theologian John Hull lost the last traces of light sensation. For the next three years, he kept a diary on audio-cassette of his interior world of blindness. This film is a dramatization that uses his original recordings.

ABC News—Sundance Film Follows Woman’s Worst Fear: Does She Have Huntington’s Disease?

Marianna Palka, who left Scotland to pursue a career in filmmaking in the United States, knew she had a “50-50” chance of getting Huntington’s disease – a rare, but devastating genetic disease that has been described as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and ALS, all rolled into one.