Recent Advances In Understanding Tourette Syndrome Tic Disorders And Functional Tics

Recent advances in understanding tourette syndrome, tic disorders and functional tics

Managing Tourette Syndrome

In 2002, the Tourette Syndrome Association formed the TS Behavioral Sciences Consortium (BSC). The charge of the BSC was to develop and test nonpharmacological treatment options for individuals, both children and adults with Tourette Syndrome. This manual is the result of their work, and represents the most scientifically effective behavioral treatment for Tourette Syndrome available today. The treatment program uses Habit Reversal Training (HRT) for children and adults with chronic tic disorder. Individual treatment is based at its core on awareness training, the development of a specific competing response for each tic, and the use of functionally-based strategies for the elimination of tic-exacerbating antecedent and consequent variables. In addition, individual treatment includes techniques designed to enhance patient compliance, including social support and an inconvenience review, as well as scheduled time for the therapist and client to discuss areas of functioning that individuals with TS may find difficult, such as social/familial difficulties and disruptive anger/rage behavior. Each week, clients are given homework assignments, to be done 4-5 times per week, consisting of 20 to 30 minutes of awareness and competing response training to tics addressed in session. The client will be encouraged to keep tally marks to monitor tic behavior. Home-based monitoring and competing response training are reviewed at each session. All homework assignments will be available in this companion workbook.

Comorbidities in Developmental Disorders

Clinics in Developmental Medicine No. 187 In the last decade the term ‘comorbidity’ has gained popularity in the field of paediatric neurodisability, with the increasing recognition that many conditions are rarely present in isolation. Within this field, the term is often used to refer to the co-occurrence of conditions more frequently than would be expected by chance, which can include instances where one condition causes the other, where they share a common cause (for example, genetic), or where they are in fact manifestations of a single condition. Whether it is valid to use the term ‘comorbidity’ in all these situations, and how precisely it should be used, is something that the contributors to this book grapple with in their own fields of interest. The contributors, all world experts in their fields, also discuss what we can learn from the presence of comorbidities, however defined, about the aetiology and treatment of neurodevelopmental disabilities. In particular, they demonstrate how our increasing understanding of the mechanisms underlying the common association of many ‘comorbidities’ is helping us to understand the natural history of these conditions and improve our management of them. Readership Paediatricians, paediatric neurologists, child psychiatrists, neurodevelopmentalists, and physical, occupational and speech therapists working with children with developmental disabilities.