Andy Warhol Museum, Hospital team up to help children with PTSD

The Andy Warhol Museum and Allegheny General Hospital have entered a unique partnership to help children coping with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Doctors from the hospital's Center for Traumatic Stress in Children and Adolescents said they are always looking for ways to help their young patients.

"They get stuck on the experience that they've had and they have a hard time getting passed this so they have nightmares and bad dreams," said Dr. Anthony Mannarino. "They are in their math classes trying to concentrate on doing their math, and they have a bad image of their father beating them or their mother getting beaten."

As with soldiers who return from war, children who suffer from PTSD can suffer from other health problems.

"The PTSD that kids have is the same kind that soldiers have coming back but the trauma they experience can be different," Mannarino said.

One of the ways doctors and the Andy Warhol Museum are working together to help patients is by teaching participants how to analyze and interpret facial features. Experts said they use the lessons to help the children with socialization.

"We actually started looking at facial recognition for children with autism because kids who are on the spectrum have a hard time recognizing facial cues. It's one of the reasons they have a hard time socializing," said Andy Warhol Museum curator Tresa Varner.

The therapy also includes a hands-on studio experience that allows the children to create their own portraits through silk screen printing, digital video and animation.

"You can better express some of your feelings through drawings and painting and so forth than you might be able to do so in words," Mannarino said.

Today's must-read: Connecticut Paves New Path In Treating Traumatized Children

Connecticut is changing the way it treats kids in the child-welfare system: "the state Department of Children and Families, working with experts in childhood trauma, is using a multi-million dollar federal grant to increase from 16 to about 26 the number of outpatient community clinics that practice trauma-focused therapy, and to put it in play at DCF's most difficult facilities, the former Riverview Children's Hospital, reorganized as the Albert J. Solnit Psychiatric Center, and the Connecticut Juvenile Training School."

Read more:

Traumatized Children Treated For PTSD - Courant.com

Join Fearless Nation PTSD Support on Facebook!

PTSD affects childrens' DNA

Childhood trauma can lead to PTSD in adults, while also affecting them on a genetic level.

According to a study published in the journal Biological Psychiatry, adults with PTSD who had a history of childhood trauma had a significantly shorter region of DNA proteins known as the telomere -- a region of repetitive DNA sequence at the end of a chromosome which protects the chromosome from deterioration. Previous studies have linked short telomere length with accelerated aging and a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and other degenerative conditions.

The study examined a total of 90 people -- 47 with PTSD and 43 without. The subjects with PTSD were found to have an average telomere length shorter than that of the non-PTSD subjects.

Read more here:

Risk of Accelerated Aging Seen in PTSD Patients with Childhood Trauma

Children Can Get PTSD from Their Parents

A Canadian study focusing on the families of returning vets indicates that parents can pass PTSD along to their children.

"Isolation, depression and trauma are among the symptoms soldiers pass on to their kids, according to preliminary results from a Canadian study," according to a report on the study at the website Parent Dish. Kids also risk "physical abuse, emotional neglect and unpredictable rage."

The study was very small -- just four teenagers whose parents, three of whom had PTSD, had served in recent conflicts, but it echoes other studies and real-world examples we've heard too much about.

Read more:

Children Getting More PTSD, Less TLC From Parents Returning From War

Childhood trauma results in adult alcohol abuse

According to a new study, women who abuse alcohol suffered a greater level of childhood trauma. The study looked at 106 men and women without PTSD (a fairly small sample group), but it's another way of disputing that old "children are resilient" saw.

The study was published in the Journal of Traumatic Stress.

How children react to parents with PTSD

One family member's PTSD can have terrible effects on the rest of the family, especially when it's a parent suffering.

According to an article from the National Center for PTSD, the symptoms of PTSD "can be frightening not only for the individual experiencing them but also for the children who witness them."

Children often react to PTSD in three common ways: by behaving like their PTSDer parent (the "over-identified child"); by trying to fill the adult's normal role in the family (the "rescuer child"); or by becoming emotionally uninvolved.

All of these responses can pose problems for a child later in life. And in fact, the children can, themselves, develop their own cases of PTSD, a condition known as "intergenerational transmission of trauma."

But that doesn't mean the situation is hopeless for families. According to the article, simply explaining to a child why a parent has been traumatized (without going in graphic detail) can go a long way toward alleviating the stress a child feels.

Treatment/therapy as a family is also often a valuable asset and tool.

If anyone in your family is suffering from PTSD, this article by Jennifer L. Price, PhD, is essential reading:

When a Child's Parent Has PTSD - National Center for PTSD

New study shows children are NOT more resilient to trauma

Conventional wisdom tells us that children are more likely to be able to bounce back from the effects of trauma. A new study says that might not be the case:

“...young children and teens not only exhibit symptoms of post-traumatic stress and depression that are similar to those of adults, but that they may react more strongly to trauma because adults do.”

Read more:

Child Depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Kids and trauma

A new study from China has inspired a wave of headlines like this one:

Dog bites can leave kids with emotional scars too

It's kind of obvious, but yes, traumatic events can cause PTSD, even if they're not combat-related.

According to the study, 19 out of 358 kids who experienced animal bites serious enough to require hospital treatment later showed signs of PTSD. That's about 5%. But 38 of those cases required serious hospitalization, and 10 of those kids were among the 19 who developed PTSD. That's closer to 25% for really serious attacks.

Here's the important factor that didn't make it into the headlines:

...the injury itself might not be the only thing that influences whether a kid gets PTSD - the care the kid gets afterward can play a role too.

"It's every important what happens in that ER, and how doctors and nurses respond," she told Reuters Health. This study, she said, "certainly speaks to the need to attend to the psychological impact of these kids of injuries."

Read more at the link above.

Practice: Austin hospital screening badly injured children for PTSD

Dell Children’s Medical Center in Austin is now screening the most severely injured children — those who come through the trauma center and are between the ages of 7 and 17 — for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Kids showing signs of needing help dealing with mental or emotional stress from a physical injury are receiving counseling for free, provided their parents give permission.

It’s all part of a study the hospital is doing in which it hopes to better predict which children are more likely to suffer from PTSD, an ailment most commonly thought of affecting soldiers who have been in battle.

Read more:
Austin hospital screening badly injured children for PTSD