For many years Eileen Miller's daughter, Kim, was unable to verbalize her experiences and emotions, but she was able to communicate using a less conventional language: her art. The Girl who Spoke with Pictures tells the story of a young woman with autism, and how her enlightening drawings enabled her to share her view of the world.
Autism is a devastating disorder. Although it was once thought to be rare, its numbers are skyrocketing today.
The need for this enlightening and eminently practical book has never been greater. Written to help the nonspecialist provide state-of-the-art care, this remarkable volume synthesizes the most recent research on the etiology, assessment, and treatment of autism spectrum disorders for practitioners. It also reviews the scientific literature and practical implications for clinical care and, in this era of evidence-based medicine, provides empirically supported guidelines for evaluation and treatment, highlighting the role of various professional disciplines.
Understanding consciousness is the major unsolved problem in biology. One increasingly important method of studying consciousness is to study disorders of consciousness, e.g. brain damage and disease states leading to vegetative states, coma, minimally conscious states, etc. Many of these studies are very much in the public eye because of their relationship to controversies about coma patients (e.g. Terry Schiavo case in the US recently), and the relationship to one of the major philosophical, sociological, political, and religious questions of humankind.
Hematology is difficult to teach at the medical school level. The curriculum is necessarily fragmented across different years of study, and often separated considerably in time. Understanding hematology requires insight into several distinct aspects: applied physiology (generally taught early), an understanding of the essential pathological processes involving the blood are taught somewhat later (if at all), and the (necessarily) strong laboratory aspect is generally taught more or less concurrently with other clinical pathology topics, such as clinical chemistry and immunology. By the time the student is faced with blood diseases in the wards, the laboratory/pathological bias is well entrenched. It is thus difficult for the student to get an integrated view of the subject. The unspoken assumption, often reinforced by clinical tutors trained in the traditional perspective, is that blood tests are all that are required for a diagnosis in blood diseases.
The first reference of its kind, An Evidence Base for Ophthalmic Nursing Practice alleviates the need for every ophthalmic practice area to develop diverse, often contradictory, guidelines. This book informs guidelines and protocols and provides up to date, evidence based information, covering: condition management (lice infestation, conjunctivitis, recurrent corneal erosion, removing foreign bodies, chalazion, pain management, acute glaucoma); techniques (padding, taking eye swabs, irrigation, administering eye drops, keratometry); and other topics, including papillary dilation, standards for driving, screening, topical anaesthesia and the eye, and prescribing.
