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Showing posts from March, 2014

Axioms

I have an almost-3 year-old daughter.  If you've spent any amount of time around a kid this age, you know they LOVE to watch the same movie/show/video over and over.  It's like the concept of saturation is completely missed by this segment of society.  My daughter's current favorite movie is Wall-E.  Remember Wall-E?  It's a really great movie about a little robot whose job it is to clear mountains of trash from a wasted Earth.  Until he falls in love.  If you've seen the movie, you may remember the name of the mega-ship that houses the last remaining humans who fled Earth some 700 years prior. The Axiom. An Axiom is " a premise or starting point of reasoning. A self-evident principle or one that is accepted as true without proof as the basis for argument ." Pretty clever, Pixar people.  The humans on the Axiom have found themselves almost mindless blobs who ride around on hover chairs all day, drinking their meals sold to them by Sigourney Weaver

In the Spotlight: Sneddon Syndrome

Our third entry for our "Rare Disease of the Month" theme for 2014 is Sneddon Syndrome .  I have a friend who is affected by this condition and she inspired me to add this to our list of conditions that we're trying to increase awareness of and knowledge about.  We hope you find this useful.  If you or someone you know lives with Sneddon's, we'd love to hear from you about your experience. Snapshot:   Sneddon syndrome is a rare disease that affects a person's circulatory system, namely their arteries which are responsible for taking blood away from the heart to all the other parts of the body.  Women tend to be diagnosed more frequently than men, and it usually shows up in the 3rd decade of life.  Sneddon's syndrome was first identified in 1965 and the incidence rate (the number of new cases) is estimated at 4 cases per million people per year in the United States. What is it? Sneddon syndrome is a chronic, progressive condition that affects a pers

Seasonal Affective Disorder: Real Thing?

Greetings from the surface of Hoth....I mean Chicago.  We've been busy here this winter breaking records for most days at or below zero degrees (26) and accumulating over 70 inches of snow.  After the 2 previous years being incredibly mild with low snowfalls, this winter was enough to drive the heartiest Chicagoan into a state of partial hibernation.   How I've been commuting to work. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) came into the fray in 1984 as a marked change in mood related to seasonal changes, usually associated with winter but not always.  In the most recent iteration of the psychiatric diagnostic manual, DSM-5, SAD is no longer its own diagnosis but has become a qualifier for another mood disorder.  So now anxiety or depression can have a "with seasonal pattern" description.   Some skepticism exists around the idea of seasonal changes in mood being classified as a disorder, and there are concerns that people will seek unnecessary treatments.  Howeve