Your Child In The Balance Solving The Psychiatric Medicine Dilemma

A thorough and balanced resource for parents facing decisions about their children. This book deftly navigates the thorny subject of whether and when to give prescription psychiatric medication to children and adolescents. A perfect overview for parents looking for an accessible guide, this book takes readers through the basics of diagnosis and treatment in children and adolescents. Your Child in the Balance is chock full of a wide variety of clinical scenarios, each demonstrating the challenges faced by parents and professionals who are considering the use of medication. The book teaches the reader how to analyze the risks and benefits that characterize all medicines and that underlie the decision to medicate. The principles discussed in Your Child in the Balance will resonate with parents and professionals whether they are considering Ritalin and Adderall or Prozac and Zoloft. The use of antipsychotics, like Abilify and Risperdal, and even holistic sleep medicines, like melatonin, are put into an even-handed perspective, as is the question of whether psychiatric medicines are over or under prescribed to children. Your Child in the Balance culminates with an extended story of parents who struggle with whether to medicate their daughter, Rosie. Every parent will identify with the emotions experienced by Rosie’s parents as they wrestle with this important decision. The book concludes with a guide to help all parents navigate this vexing, but crucial, choice.

What should happen when doctors and parents disagree about what would be best for a child? When should courts become involved? Should life support be stopped against parents’ wishes? The case of Charlie Gard, reached global attention in 2017. It led to widespread debate about the ethics of disagreements between doctors and parents, about the place of the law in such disputes, and about the variation in approach between different parts of the world. In this book, medical ethicists Dominic Wilkinson and Julian Savulescu critically examine the ethical questions at the heart of disputes about medical treatment for children. They use the Gard case as a springboard to a wider discussion about the rights of parents, the harms of treatment, and the vital issue of limited resources. They discuss other prominent UK and international cases of disagreement and conflict. From opposite sides of the debate Wilkinson and Savulescu provocatively outline the strongest arguments in favour of and against treatment. They analyse some of the distinctive and challenging features of treatment disputes in the 21st century and argue that disagreement about controversial ethical questions is both inevitable and desirable. They outline a series of lessons from the Gard case and propose a radical new ‘dissensus’ framework for future cases of disagreement. This new book critically examines the core ethical questions at the heart of disputes about medical treatment for children. The contents review prominent cases of disagreement from the UK and internationally and analyse some of the distinctive and challenging features around treatment disputes in the 21st century. The book proposes a radical new framework for future cases of disagreement around the care of gravely ill people.

In recent decades, advances in biomedical research have helped save or lengthen the lives of children around the world. With improved therapies, child and adolescent mortality rates have decreased significantly in the last half century. Despite these advances, pediatricians and others argue that children have not shared equally with adults in biomedical advances. Even though we want children to benefit from the dramatic and accelerating rate of progress in medical care that has been fueled by scientific research, we do not want to place children at risk of being harmed by participating in clinical studies. Ethical Conduct of Clinical Research Involving Children considers the necessities and challenges of this type of research and reviews the ethical and legal standards for conducting it. It also considers problems with the interpretation and application of these standards and conduct, concluding that while children should not be excluded from potentially beneficial clinical studies, some research that is ethically permissible for adults is not acceptable for children, who usually do not have the legal capacity or maturity to make informed decisions about research participation. The book looks at the need for appropriate pediatric expertise at all stages of the design, review, and conduct of a research project to effectively implement policies to protect children. It argues persuasively that a robust system for protecting human research participants in general is a necessary foundation for protecting child research participants in particular.

After you’ve made the decision to return to work following the birth of a child, you may still wonder, “Am I doing the right thing for my family?” and “How on earth do I make this work?” Now, The Working Mother’s Guide to Life sets out to offer you hundreds of answers to these types of questions, from nuts-and-bolts advice, such as finding top-notch child care and stress-free ways to manage your household, to more complex issues like separating from your child without feeling guilty and creating a rich, strong family culture that will thrive regardless of whether or not you are working. Author Linda Mason—herself a working mom and founder of an award-winning company that cares for the children of working parents across the country—provides a reassuring, practical, and comprehensive guide based on interviews with more than 100 successful working mothers from diverse backgrounds. Here are countless strategies and tips from these experts on everything from household chores and returning to work with a newborn to finding communities of support. • Building the Three Pillars of Success: A supportive workplace, a “partner-in-parenting,” and excellent child care • Running a household, holding down a job, and thriving while keeping it all together—from getting food on the table to getting out the door in the morning • Setting your priorities, including nurturing your family, satisfying your employer, and taking care of your own needs • Tips from caregivers on how to help your children blossom and grow in a variety of child care settings

The MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Treatment (MacCAT-T) is the product of an 8-year study of patients' capacities to make treatment decisions. It is a semi-structured interview that assists clinicians in assessing a patient's competence to consent to treatment. The process provides a patient with information about their medical/psychiatric condition, the type of treatment being recommended, its risks and benefits, as well as other possible treatments and their probable consequences. During this process, the MacCAT-T prompts the clinician to ask questions that assess the patient's understanding, appreciation, and reasoning regarding treatment decisions.The MacCAT-T Manual is a large-format, examiner-friendly field manual for conducting actual competency assessments. The MacCAT-T Record Form is well designed for recording, rating, and summarizing patient responses. The training videotape, Administering the MacCAT-T, demonstrates an actual administration of the test with discussion, comments, and annotations by Drs. Grisso and Appelbaum.The book, Assessing Competence to Consent to Treatment, describes the place of competence in the doctrine of informed consent, analyzes the elements of decision making, and shows how assessments of competence to consent to treatment can be conducted within varied general medical and psychiatric treatment settings. Includes numerous case studies.

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.