The other thing is that states are going broke trying to pay for these drugs for their Medicaid patients. They can't afford this story any longer; they can't afford so many people going on disability; they can't afford young people going on disability. And that is going to, I think, force some change because as we all know, state budgets are feeling a crunch right now -- the spending on psychiatric drugs is a big part of the problem they have, so there is this backlash coming from financial reasons as well in that this paradigm of care...where we're ending up with more and more people on disability; we're ending up with kids at age 18 going on to a lifelong path of disability -- by the way the 18 year old that goes on disability...it's going to cost society more than a million dollars to sustain that kid...that person over the next 20-25 years with all the medical costs and the, you know, paying for shelter and that sort of thing.
Rob: Perhaps the answer is when the kid is a little fidgety in class and doesn't do his homework, we've got to come up with some new solutions to deal with those kids. And part of the problem -- because I've also been doing a series of interviews on education -- is that our schools are designed to prepare most children to be obedient factory workers and soldiers, and they don't deal with the world we have now where so many kids just don't fit that model, and the education is not preparing them, so that education is broken and maybe there's an unstated alliance between educators...I don't think so, I don't educators are doing this, but what it comes down to is the school system that we have is so broken it's causing the kind of behavior that leads to these kids getting identified and diagnosed, and that puts them into this pathway...10 to 25 percent....
RW: Right. 1 in 15 enters adulthood with a severe mental illness.
Rob: Horrible.
RW: Listen now you're talking about....what's that?
Rob: It's horrible.
RW: It's horrible...well, I do think now you're talking about another thing that is profound --and that is...have we created a society that is able to raise children in a healthy way? And I think the answer is no. And if you want to talk about raising children in a healthy way, I think you have to talk about everything from diet, food -- you know, what sort of food do kids get, how are schools organized -- are the schools organized so the kids get out to go out and play, you know, every 2 hours and run off some energy...there's that; how interesting are the school days; you know, when the kids go home what is the home life like at night...I mean, as you know families are economically stressed like crazy now -- and I think in that sense we have a huge societal failure. If we have 1 in every 15 kids -- and by the way the General Accountability Office said that was an undercount because it wasn't even counting kids in institutions and all...and homeless kids and all -- if we have that number of our kids entering adulthood with a severe mental illness that's leaving them quote "functionally impaired" then what you're talking about -- quite apart from the drugs -- is a society that doesn't know how to raise kids all that well anymore...at least it's failing a significant percentage of kids. And so I think you do have to talk about everything from diet to possibilities of exercise, to what sort of opportunities for socialization are happening, how stressed are families in terms of trying to meet economic needs -- that is a huge, huge, huge story and...but I do think it needs to be addressed. Very good question.
Rob: [Inaudible 0:59:27]...another. Now I have a long history of working in the world of biofeedback and neurofeedback. Now biofeedback and neurofeedback have long had the goal of providing alternatives to drugs and the idea of biofeedback is basically -- and there are different versions of neurofeedback in particular -- but in the last 20 some years, neurofeedback has come into its own as an approach that teaches kids and adults how to learn how to voluntarily control your brainwaves to start producing more attentiveness and more focus, but voluntarily with your own self regulations. Some of the models are based on a pathology oriented approach that the brain is broken and needs to be fixed; others are based on teaching kids to be more balanced and just use general self-regulation skills. What's your take on this? I know you've had some experience with biofeedback in another realm, is that correct?
RW: Yeah, that's true. Well let me speak about, first of all, in the big realm of what you're talking about and in the personal realm. The big realm, I think...that sort of approach is basically saying to the child or the youth -- it gives them a sense of self agency, and by that I mean is that's telling the child you can do things if you're feeling, you know, these emotional stress or you have behaviors that are so problematic to others -- you can take control of those things; it's not that you need to be fixed by a pill that you're quote "defective," but that you have the capacity, the potential to make these changes, and it might mean doing biofeedback, it may mean doing exercise programs, yoga -- whatever it might mean. But the beauty of that whole thing is just from the outside, it's an optimistic idea and it's also an idea that is self-responsibility as well. In other words, it's empowering to that child in addition. And it's not telling to child --you're broken for life. So all those things are really great right from the beginning -- self agency, self-responsibility, optimism, and it's not telling the kid they're broken for life. So I think this is the sort of things we really need to be exploring, absolutely.
Now in terms of biofeedback, my oldest daughter who is 29 years old now, had a physical condition called Raynaud Syndrome, where blood wasn't getting to her toes and her fingers, etcetera. Well she did biofeedback for that, for this very physical condition, and in fact, it became quite effective -- it's a way she now learned to deal with that problem. So it's an example of...and I guess what happens is she somehow learned biofeedback to open up, you know, the vessels...the blood vessels in some sort of way...that sounds mysterious...
Rob: I can tell...I can talk a little bit about that...
RW: Okay you talk about it -- it was mysterious to me.
Rob: Biofeedback for Raynaud's Syndrome is basically temperature or thermal biofeedback where you put a temperature sensor on the fingertips and teach a person how to warm their hands...they warm their hands by relaxing the muscles in...that surround blood vessels, and as they relax their hands get warmer.
RW: Alright, there you go.
Rob: When poets talked about how as you relax your hands and feet get warmer, it took scientists hundreds of years past the poets to figure out what the poets already knew. But that's the basic idea...very simple, it's very inexpensive -- I am pleased to say that one of my inventions...a temperature biofeedback card was on the Dr. Oz show on Monday, and you can see information about that on the futurehealth.org website.
RW: Great.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
