Community health workers could help extend care to more minority children with ADHD, a new pilot study says. Parents of kids with ADHD said they were more likely to consider medications, therapy and school services to help their child, researchers report in the Journal of Attention Disorders. “We know from previous studies that compared to white youth, Black, Hispanic and Asian children with ADHD receive less treatment, including fewer visits with a health care provider and lower medication use,” said lead researcher Dr. Andrea Spencer, vice chair for research in psychiatry and behavioral health at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. “We are excited to make a tangible difference for children and their families by using a community-based approach to ADHD that has proved to be so successful for other pediatric conditions, like asthma,” Spencer added in a news release. This is the first study to test ADHD care delivered by community health workers — non-clinical recruits with deep knowledge of and connections to their community, Spencer said. ADHD affects as many as 8% of children, and can be treated using a combination of drugs, behavior therapy and school accommodations, researchers said in background notes. However, many kids don’t have access to ADHD care, due to racial, ethnic and socioeconomic inequities, researchers said. For this study, researchers asked trained community health workers…  read on >  read on >

Community health workers could help extend care to more minority children with ADHD, a new pilot study says. Parents of kids with ADHD said they were more likely to consider medications, therapy and school services to help their child, researchers report in the Journal of Attention Disorders. “We know from previous studies that compared to white youth, Black, Hispanic and Asian children with ADHD receive less treatment, including fewer visits with a health care provider and lower medication use,” said lead researcher Dr. Andrea Spencer, vice chair for research in psychiatry and behavioral health at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. “We are excited to make a tangible difference for children and their families by using a community-based approach to ADHD that has proved to be so successful for other pediatric conditions, like asthma,” Spencer added in a news release. This is the first study to test ADHD care delivered by community health workers — non-clinical recruits with deep knowledge of and connections to their community, Spencer said. ADHD affects as many as 8% of children, and can be treated using a combination of drugs, behavior therapy and school accommodations, researchers said in background notes. However, many kids don’t have access to ADHD care, due to racial, ethnic and socioeconomic inequities, researchers said. For this study, researchers asked trained community health workers…  read on >  read on >

“Phantom limb” pain has been a curious aftereffect of amputation, with people experiencing false sensations from a hand, arm or leg that is no longer there. Researchers now think they know why phantom limb sensations occur. It turns out that the brain maintains a “map” of the body that remains unchanged even after a limb has been amputated, researchers report in the journal Nature Neuroscience. This not only explains a well-documented phenomenon, but offers a new solution when it comes to artificial limbs, researchers say. Using this brain map, it might be more straightforward than previously thought to control a robotic replacement limb with the mind, researchers said. “Now that we’ve shown these maps are stable, brain-computer interface technologies can operate under the assumption that the body map remains consistent over time,” lead researcher Hunter Schone, a postdoctoral associate with the University of Pittsburgh, said in a news release. “This allows us to move into the next frontier: accessing finer details of the hand map — like distinguishing the tip of the finger from the base — and restoring the rich, qualitative aspects of sensation, such as texture, shape and temperature,” he continued. “This study is a powerful reminder that even after limb loss, the brain holds onto the body, waiting for us to reconnect.” For this study, researchers worked with three people who needed…  read on >  read on >

“Phantom limb” pain has been a curious aftereffect of amputation, with people experiencing false sensations from a hand, arm or leg that is no longer there. Researchers now think they know why phantom limb sensations occur. It turns out that the brain maintains a “map” of the body that remains unchanged even after a limb has been amputated, researchers report in the journal Nature Neuroscience. This not only explains a well-documented phenomenon, but offers a new solution when it comes to artificial limbs, researchers say. Using this brain map, it might be more straightforward than previously thought to control a robotic replacement limb with the mind, researchers said. “Now that we’ve shown these maps are stable, brain-computer interface technologies can operate under the assumption that the body map remains consistent over time,” lead researcher Hunter Schone, a postdoctoral associate with the University of Pittsburgh, said in a news release. “This allows us to move into the next frontier: accessing finer details of the hand map — like distinguishing the tip of the finger from the base — and restoring the rich, qualitative aspects of sensation, such as texture, shape and temperature,” he continued. “This study is a powerful reminder that even after limb loss, the brain holds onto the body, waiting for us to reconnect.” For this study, researchers worked with three people who needed…  read on >  read on >