Interface Consultation Services, PLLC

(AP) -- A rare genetic variation dramatically raises the risk of developing autism, a large study showed, opening new research targets for better understanding the disorder and for treating it. Research into the causes of autism has focused on genetic causes because so many families have multiple children with the disorder. Thus far, only about 10 percent of autism cases have a known genetic cause. Boston, Massachusetts-area researchers estimate the gene glitch they've identified accounts for an additional 1 percent of cases. They found that in people with autism, a segment of a chromosome that has genes linked to brain development and various developmental disorders was either missing or duplicated far more often. The defect was inherited in some cases, but more often the result of a random genetic accident. The results from the Autism Consortium study, released online Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine, confirm those of smaller studies by U.S. and Canadian research

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. -Martin Luther King, Jr.

A brief overview of Interface Consultation Services ( ICS ) current endeavors: I. PESI Seminars by ICS : High Risk Callers: Responding to Psychiatric Emergencies Over the Phone. New and exciting sorely needed seminar designed specifically for clinicians, call centers, triage nurses who provide efficient assessment and treatment over the phone. Psychiatric Emergencies over the phone line are DIFFICULT and extremely anxiety provoking. General Medical Clinics are seeing more psychiatric patients. Learn the skills you didn't learn in school to assist these patients. II. Telemental Health Triage - We continue our day-to-day service commitment to Riverwood Center to provide professional triage services so their consumers are assured efficient and timely access to mental health services, appropriate level of care assignments and expert telephone crisis triage. III. Utilization Management - We continue to provide acute care authorization for Riverwood Center, a community mental heal

Provided by: Canadian PressWritten by: Sheryl Ubelacker, Health Reporter, THE CANADIAN PRESS Jan. 15, 2008 TORONTO - Children whose mothers suffer prolonged depression or anxiety appear to have a higher rate of asthma than other youngsters, independent of other risk factors for the increasingly common respiratory condition, a Canadian study suggests. The study, which analyzed seven years of health records for almost 14,000 Manitoba children born in 1995, found that kids whose mothers were chronically distressed during those childhood years had a 25 per cent increased risk of developing asthma. The finding, reported in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, was independent of other factors associated with childhood asthma, such as genetic predisposition, household income, being male or female, or living in an urban or rural environment. Lead investigator Dr. Anita Kozyrskyj, an associate professor of pharmacy at the University of Manitoba, said she and her colle