Welcome to the February 2019 edition of The Bridge. The focus of this edition is Tourette Syndrome, a condition, which has much stigma attached, stereotyped views by society about what it means and a lack of national clinical guidance.
We are gradually gaining better understanding of how common it is, the nature of the symptomatology as well as the effectiveness of treatments. Tourette Syndrome is seen clinically by both paediatric and child and adolescent mental health settings. This reflects possible differing clinical perspectives that this is either a motor or a behaviour/habit/impulse disorder. There is ongoing debate regarding what kinds of services should take responsibility for diagnosing and treating it. Clinically it also appears to be worsened by stress and anxiety and having Tourette Syndrome can affect an individual’s mood and self-esteem. The waxing and waning of symptoms certainly does not help in establishing whether a treatment is working or not and clinical views also differ on what medications are helpful, what works best or how to treat effectively in a non-pharmacological way.
In this edition of The Bridge, we have summaries of research published by ACAMH within our portfolio of journals by the original authors, as well as by one of our in-house science writers.
Hopefully some of your questions about its nature as well as what is shown to work and how well for managing the symptoms will be answered. You may be surprised by what you read…
I hope that you enjoy reading this issue of The Bridge and perhaps you’ll be interested in attending one of ACAMH’s periodic events on sleep either in person or online.
If you have any ideas for content or feedback on the bridge whilst I am acting as Guest Editor, please email me.
I hope you enjoy reading this edition of The Bridge please share it with colleagues, and a pdf version is available, look out for our PTSD edition out next month.
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Research Digests
- Access to evidence-based behavioural interventions needs improving for children affected by Tics
- Barriers to improving access to therapy treatment for tics in the UK
- Can physical exercise improve tics and associated mental health difficulties in Tourette syndrome? The jury is out
- Challenging perspectives on Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome – evidence for a disorder of purposeful actions
- Sensory-action binding: a new facet of Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome?
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Podcasts
Dr Seonaid Anderson and Helen Eadie, of Tourettes Action, define Tourettes Syndrome and expand on its impact.