Disabled Kids 4 Times More Likely to Suffer Violence: Study

HealthDay – 1 hr 2 mins ago WEDNESDAY, July 11 (HealthDay News) -- One in four children with disabilities experiences some form of violence during their lifetime, a new study has found.

In the report, published online July 11 in The Lancet, researchers from the United Kingdom said that the risk of physical, sexual or emotional abuse or neglect for these children is nearly four times greater than for children who are not disabled.

"The impact of a child's disability on their quality of life is very much dependent on the way other individuals treat them," one of the study authors, Mark Bellis of Liverpool John Moores University in England, said in a journal news release.

"This research establishes that the risk of violence to children with disabilities is routinely three to four times higher than that of nondisabled children. It is the duty of government and civil society to ensure that such victimization is exposed and prevented," Bellis added.

For the study, the investigators examined 17 previous studies involving more than 18,000 children from the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland, Spain and Israel. Most of the children were between the ages of 2 and 18 years.

The analysis revealed that nearly 27 percent of the children with disabilities had suffered some form of violence, including physical, sexual or emotional abuse or neglect. The study authors noted that lifetime levels of physical violence and sexual violence were high (20 percent and 14 percent, respectively).

The researchers also estimated that children with disabilities are at least three times more likely to be exposed to physical violence and nearly three times more likely to be exposed to sexual violence compared to children without disabilities.

Kids with mental or intellectual deficits are at greater risk for sexual abuse than children with other types of disabilities or no disabilities at all, the authors noted. However, there wasn't enough information to determine the risk for exposure to sexual violence of children with other types of disabilities, they pointed out.

Dr. Etienne Krug, director of the World Health Organization's department of violence and injury prevention and disability, which contributed to the study, commented in the news release: "The results of this review prove that children with disabilities are disproportionately vulnerable to violence, and their needs have been neglected for far too long. We know that specific strategies exist to prevent violence and mitigate its consequences. We now need to determine if these also work for children with disabilities. An agenda needs to be set for action."

The study authors added that children with disabilities living in developing nations could be at particular risk for exposure to violence.

"Estimates are missing for most regions of the world, particularly low-income and middle-income countries. This is a fundamental gap that needs to be addressed because these countries generally have higher population rates of disability, higher levels of violence and fewer support services than do high-income countries," explained Bellis.

Emily Lund and Jessica Vaughn-Jensen from Texas A&M University, authors of an accompanying comment in The Lancet, concluded in the news release that "researchers need to target under-represented disability groups . . .

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Minorities Less Likely to Use Hospice Care: Study

HealthDay – Fri, Jun 29, 2012 FRIDAY, June 29 (HealthDay News) --Minority patients with heart failure are less likely to use hospice care than whites, new research finds.

Hospice provides palliative care for the terminally ill. The goal is to ease pain and discomfort, and to focus on quality of life as death approaches. Overall, use of hospice care is increasing, according to researchers from Indiana University School of Medicine.

Their study found that nonwhite Medicare patients with heart failure were 20 percent less likely to enroll in hospice than white patients. Nonwhite patients were also more likely to drop out of hospice care than whites.

"When considering end-of-life care options, it is important to consider hospice services at home, in nursing homes or in hospice facilities," study author Dr. Kathleen Unroe, a scientist with the Indiana University Center for Aging Research, said in a university news release. "Our findings highlight that there is a significant difference between how white patients and nonwhite patients and their families utilize hospice services."

The study, which looked at records on nearly 220,000 heart failure patients on Medicare, was published in the June issue of the American Heart Journal.

Nearly 1.6 million people received hospice services in 2010, according to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization. About 42 percent of all deaths in the United States were under the care of a hospice program in 2010.

More information

The U.S. National Institutes of Health provides more information on hospice care.

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U.S. women in 20s less likely to get pregnant or have abortion

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Depressed Teens Who Respond to Treatment Less Likely to Abuse Drugs

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Blacks Less Likely to Get Help on Scene After Cardiac Arrest: Study

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Older Lung Cancer Patients Less Likely to Be Treated

HealthDay – Fri, May 4, 2012 FRIDAY, May 4 (HealthDay News) -- A study of seniors with non-small cell lung cancer found that older patients are less likely to receive treatment than younger patients, regardless of their overall health and prognosis.

Non-small cell lung cancer is the most common type of lung cancer.

For this study, U.S. researchers looked at data from more than 20,000 lung cancer patients aged 65 and older in the VA Central Cancer Registry between 2003 and 2008 and found that, for all stages of lung cancer, younger, sicker patients were more likely to receive treatment than otherwise healthy older patients.

That may not be best for patients, the researchers said. Previous research has shown that older lung cancer patients who are otherwise healthy can benefit from treatment, while those with other illnesses are more vulnerable to the toxicity of cancer treatments.

"It's clear that, as human beings and physicians, we fixate on age in deciding whether to pursue cancer treatments, including lung cancer treatments. Instead, we should be looking at our patients' overall state of health," lead author Dr. Sunny Wang, a physician at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and an assistant clinical professor of medicine at the University of California-San Francisco, said in a university news release.

The study was published May 1 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Patients aged 65 to 74 who were severely ill from other illnesses -- and thus less likely to benefit from and more likely to be harmed by cancer treatment -- received treatment at about the same rate as patients in the same age range with no other illnesses.

These patients were more likely to receive treatment than patients aged 75 to 84 who had no other illnesses and better prognoses.

"The message here is, don't base cancer treatment strictly on age," Wang said. "Don't write off an otherwise healthy 75-year-old, and don't automatically decide to treat a really ill 65-year-old without carefully assessing the risks and benefits for that patient."

More information

The American Cancer Society has more about non-small cell lung cancer.

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Parents of Kids With Cancer No More Likely to Break Up

HealthDay – 43 mins ago THURSDAY, April 12 (HealthDay News) -- Even though a child's illness can cause severe stress, a new study from Denmark finds that the marriages and partnerships of parents of kids with cancer aren't more likely to fall apart.

The study debunks "a persistent myth that childhood cancer will have a destructive impact on one's marriage and family. This is simply not true," said Anne Kazak, professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Cancer in children is rare, although it's the leading disease-related cause of death in kids under 15. According to the National Cancer Institute, an average of one to two children out of 10,000 develop cancer each year.

In the new study, researchers studied the parents of 2,450 children (up to age 20) who received a diagnosis of cancer between 1980 and 1997. They compared them to the parents of 44,853 similar children who didn't have cancer, and followed them for up to 20 years.

The parents in both groups included both married and unmarried couples who lived together. (As of 1996, cohabiting but unmarried parents accounted for 60 percent of first-born children in Denmark.)

Even after adjusting the findings so they wouldn't be skewed by high or low numbers of people of certain income levels, the researchers found that having a child with cancer didn't affect the likelihood that a couple would separate.

The findings surprised study co-author Dr. Christoffer Johansen, who called the results "good news."

"You could imagine that you would find an increased risk for some cancers and in some marriages, but we didn't find that no matter how we analyzed the data," said Johansen, head of the Unit of Survivorship at the Danish Cancer Society in Copenhagen. "Having a child with cancer doesn't appear to be a risk factor for divorce."

Why are the couples so resilient? Johansen said it may have something to do with how a child's cancer isn't an inherent problem within a couple's relationship.

"It's inside the family, but it's an outside problem -- and now they have to stand together to cope with it," he said. "I think the relationships were able to handle the problems and take care of that strain because you simply need to do that in order to get through everyday life."

Johansen speculated that the findings would be similar in other Western countries like the United States, although they'll depend on factors including access to health insurance.

Kazak said having a child with cancer puts parents under intense strain.

"Learning that your child has cancer remains one of the most distressing experiences possible and distress under these circumstances is, of course, normal," she said. "Families must focus their energy on treatment and supporting the child and other children. But it's essential to remember that the couple's relationship is critical, too, and to think about specific ways of communicating, problem-solving and staying connected during this time."

The study appears in the May issue of the journal Pediatrics.

More information

For more about cancer in children, try the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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Minorities, Medicare Recipients Less Likely to Get Antidepressants

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