Is Your Child Anxious or Depressed?
ideal path, many of our children are born with physiologic stressors already in place, a continuation of the legacy!
Solutions for Anxiety and Depression
Today, there are many tools to help
decrease physiologic stress in the body, and thereby, decrease and eliminate anxi- ety disorders as well as depression in chil- dren and adults. A particular method that has been found to be very successful is a combined approach of Integrative Manual Therapy and nutritional wellness. Integra- tive Manual Therapy (IMT) is a hands-on approach to treatment of pain, disability, and disease. IMT was developed by Dr. Sharon (Weiselfish) Giammatteo over the past 30 years. IMT has been used by fami- lies for three decades to promote healthy living as well as decrease dysfunction in the body.
Integrative Manual Therapy for Childhood Anxiety and Depression
In the IMT model, there is an under-
of us are medicated in some way to help alleviate some of the pressure. As I sit here writing this article, I am reminded of my own history of childhood anxiety and panic attacks. At the time, anti-anxiety and antidepressant medications were uncom- mon. But today, they are widely used for adults as well as children. In fact, “Antide- pressant use increased for all age groups between 1996 and 2005, including among children, despite a 2004 "black box" warn- ing on antidepressant use in young pa- tients.” (Archives of General Psychiatry, August 2009). It is amazing to think of our children
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suffering in this manner. I have a two year old son and he seems so carefree. How do I keep him from being affected by this legacy? How do we prevent all of our chil- dren from this type of hardship? In today’s world, there are so many new challenges; a significant increase in behavioral and
n today’s American culture, almost ev- ery person experiences anxiety or de- pression on a regular basis and many
learning disorders such as attention defi- cit and autism, the proliferation of aller- gies and infectious disorders in our local, national, and global communities, the in- creased use of pesticides and synthetic fill- ers in our food, the potential negative ef- fect of genetically modified foods (GMO) which are rampant in the standard Ameri- can diet yet outlawed in European coun- tries. There are many possible rationales for this increase in childhood anxiety and depression. As a health practitioner, I see many
more children today with anxiety and de- pression as compared to five years ago. “It is estimated that 3 percent of children and about 12 percent of teens suffer from depression. The increased awareness of childhood depression and its impact on a child has led to an increase in the use of antidepressants to treat these children.” (Iannelli, V., 2009) As many of us already know, preven-
tion is the key to a healthy and balanced body and mind. Though prevention is an
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standing that various organs, when they are in a state of inflammation, can pro- duce certain negative emotions. Anxiety can be produced by the kidneys and ad- renal glands as well as some other organs. Depression can be even more complex because there is endogenous depression (from within the body) and exogenous de- pression (from outside). Psychotherapy is such an important tool to help manage de- pression, but so often, it is not enough to make a sustainable change in the person. Depression may be secondary to emo- tional trauma and stress in our lives, but it may also be an effect of body dysfunction. For example, if a person has high levels of mercury in the body, which would be con- sidered endogenous—this elevated level of toxicity may lead to depression as well as fatigue and headaches which are com- monly linked with depression. On the oth- er hand, the person may have experienced a physical trauma to their head, such as a car accident—this force can cause signifi- cant inflammation of the central nervous system which can manifest as depression, in addition to other related symptoms such as chronic pain. It is common knowledge in this coun-
try that infertility is on the rise today. When women are able to conceive, commonly, the pregnancy and delivery are problem- August 2010
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