Therapy

SIX-YEAR-OLD Jacob Wenger Smith knows more about structure than most children his age, having spent the past two years in home-based therapy for autism. For 40 hours a week, he participates in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), a one-on-one therapy. He is also on a restricted diet that does not allow dairy, gluten, beef or additives. Jacob was 3 when his autism was diagnosed. After visits to specialists and a variety of tests, his parents, Steve and Doris Smith, decided that ABA might give Jacob the best chance for an independent future.

Editor: As summer approaches, many high school students are getting ready to graduate and head off to colleges across the nation. As a soon to graduate college student, who attended our own Fallston High School, I would like to suggest a major that is little known but highly rewarding: occupational therapy.  Occupational therapy was established as a profession in 1917 and has continued to grow to this day. Occupational therapists work with...

Towson Rehabilitation Center LLC, a Towson physical, occupational and speech therapy provider, must restore more than $29,000 in interest to the company's 401(k) retirement plan, according to a consent judgment obtained in federal court by the U.S. Labor Department. In a lawsuit filed last January, the labor department alleged that since January 2006, Towson Rehabilitation and CEO Howard Neels failed to pay employee contributions to the plan, paid some employee contributions late without interest and failed to segregate the plan's assets from the company's assets.

Kaci DeWitt-Rickards remembers being a chunky kid with a steady diet of Burger King chicken tenders, vanilla milkshakes and Papa John's pizza. By her sophomore year in college at the University of Miami, her adolescent pudge had ballooned into a weight problem. The 5-foot-4 exercise physiology major hit her heaviest weight ever that fall in 2010, weighing in at 167 pounds. She felt bad about herself and didn't have a lot of energy. But most of all, she felt like a hypocrite as she studied for a career to help people stay fit. "If you're going to go out and teach a healthy lifestyle, you have to live it," DeWitt-Rickards remembers a professor saying that fall semester.

Four out of five patients who said they had sex with their psychotherapists after therapy ended suffered psychological harm as a result, according to a study to be published this fall in the journal Psychotherapy.The finding may bolster an emerging movement to ban sexual relationships between therapists and clients "in perpetuity." While sexual relationships are currently forbidden in all states during therapy, only Florida has an in perpetuity ban. A few states limit such relationships for varying periods after therapy.

Osiris Therapeutics, a Baltimore biotechnology company, said yesterday that it will provide grants to the Ireland Cancer Center and Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland to help pay for a clinical trial of a blood-boosting cell therapy the company has developed.Osiris' grants will pay for use of the therapy in breast cancer patients whose insurance does not cover such infusions.The clinical trial, which could involve up to 30 patients, began last month. It involves studying the safety of the Osiris therapy, which is designed to boost breast cancer patients' blood cell counts, said James Burns, Osiris' president.

Univax Biologics Inc. of Rockville will collaborate with one o the nation's largest biotechnology companies to develop a preventive therapy for people who may have been exposed to the AIDS virus as well as for those already infected.Genentech Inc., a San Francisco company, chose Univax to develop the therapy because of the company's expertise in treatments based on antibodies.Genentech will give Univax a genetically engineered vaccine now being tested on humans. Univax will innoculate healthy, uninfected volunteers whose bodies are expected to produce antibodies to the AIDS virus.

"Therapy," by David Lodge. 321 pages. New York: Viking. $22.95David Lodge is a funny man with a slight case of monomania. Most of his 10 comic novels are about middle-aged married men whose lives have gradually become unsatisfactory, and whose sex lives are similarly unsatisfactory; these men invariably contrive to have rip-roaringly hot extramarital affairs, and are thereby brought back to life. Lots of other amusing things happen in Lodge's books, but the equation Midlife Crisis + Illicit Fornication = Bliss is never very far from center stage.

The wife of Christopher Reeve said yesterday that the actor had begun therapy for his paralysis and had been watching hockey on TV.Doctors at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville where Mr. Reeve, 42, has been treated since his riding accident on May 27 reported that he had made some unexpected progress.They said that while he was still unable to breathe without a respirator, he did show signs of movement on both sides of his body.The doctors said he could eat solid food and was not in pain.

I've been suffering from pain in my neck. Some friends at the gym suggested Active Release Technique. Have you ever heard of it? Your friends must be on the cutting edge because Active Release Technique is a relatively new way to treat soft-tissue injuries. In 1988, a Colorado chiropractor named Michael Leahy patented the process for treating soft-tissue injuries and began training health practitioners to use this massage-like therapy. While it's not widely known among everyday exercisers, ART has caught on with some world-class athletes, especially triathletes, runners and body builders.

Dan Rodricks ' column ("Gun control, yes, and therapy, not jail," March 3) on the 35-year prison sentence given the 15-year-old Perry Hall High School student was right on. So was the letter from Ann Phillips ("Perry Hall shooter's sentence is a travesty," March 1). When you are an adolescent, you can not drink or vote. You can't drink at 18 years of age because you are not considered mature enough to handle it. You can't drive until you are 16 years old. But you can enlist in the U.S. Army when you are 18 years old and "adult.

Two years after a Maryland doctor lost his medical license for using a controversial treatment for autistic patients, the state Board of Physicians has suspended his business partner for allegedly writing the same dangerous prescription for several patients. The board suspended John L. Young's license to practice medicine in the state Feb. 13. On Feb. 21, Young resigned from his post on the University System of Maryland's Board of Regents, citing a desire to "devote more time to other activities.

With no thanks to the Democratic state senator who represents the area, the Baltimore County community of Perry Hall is safer from gun violence than it was six months ago. We can say that much. Sen. Kathy Klausmeier might have voted against the important gun control bill that her colleagues in the Maryland Senate passed on Thursday, but Bobby Gladden has gone to prison, and that means his former fellow students at Perry Hall High won't have to worry about seeing him with a gun in the cafeteria again.

Towson Rehabilitation Center LLC, a Towson physical, occupational and speech therapy provider, must restore more than $29,000 in interest to the company's 401(k) retirement plan, according to a consent judgment obtained in federal court by the U.S. Labor Department. In a lawsuit filed last January, the labor department alleged that since January 2006, Towson Rehabilitation and CEO Howard Neels failed to pay employee contributions to the plan, paid some employee contributions late without interest and failed to segregate the plan's assets from the company's assets.

If there ever was a right time to be diagnosed with breast cancer , Beth Thompson found one. In February 2006, the pea-size tumor in her right breast was too small for a clinical trial of Herceptin, a targeted therapy that had proved effective in advanced stages of the aggressive cancer Thompson had. She underwent a lumpectomy and chemotherapy. When the cancer continued to show signs of growth, she had a double mastectomy. But soon after, her doctor, buoyed by promising trial results, encouraged her to consider Herceptin, developed by Genetech to target the protein that fuels the cancer's growth.

Amy Lynne Shelton has a closet full of toys at the Johns Hopkins University cognitive psychology lab: Wooden human figures with movable joints, Lego and model train buildings, toy cameras and wooden triangular blocks — some with eyes, some without. Each has its role to play in research shedding light on the possible relationship of social grace and sense of physical space, work that might eventually help people who suffer the social difficulties common in autism spectrum disorder. Shelton, an associate professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, led a team that has published results in the Journal of Experimental Psychology and is ready to submit for publication a fresh round of trials adding new variables — and new toys — to the experiment.

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- From the society that hailed the 10-minute oil change, the fast-food restaurant and the automated teller machine, it was only a matter of time before someone would offer therapy in a van.Patients pressed for time now can buckle up and talk while en route from home to the office, from the office to a business appointment or to no place in particular.Mobile Psychological Services, based in this New York suburb, caters to people who cannot fit counseling appointments into their harried lives.

WASHINGTON - In a major change, the Bush administration has authorized Medicare coverage for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. The new policy means that Medicare beneficiaries can no longer be denied reimbursement for the costs of mental health services, hospice care or home health care just because they have Alzheimer's. Nearly 4 million Americans have the disease and it is expected to grow to epidemic proportions with the aging of the population. In the past, many claims were automatically denied on the assumption that treatment was futile because people with Alzheimer's were incapable of medical improvement.

Dizzy, Sara and Remi don't know whether or not the new freshmen at McDaniel College are feeling a little homesick, or experiencing their first time on a campus away from family or friends. But regardless, on Tuesday they were only too happy to cuddle with students who needed a hug in Whiteford Hall, the dorm for freshmen females, and also spent time visiting students at Kriel Lounge, a popular gathering place that includes a large cafeteria. The trio - Sara and Remi are spaniels, and Dizzy is a Chinese crested puff - were tough to resist, with their tails wagging and their puppy dog eyes.