The shift from corporate punishment to psychotropic drugs : From interviews with staff at Children’s Home Y in Prefecture Z

This paper explores changes in the handling of problem behavior in children residing at children’s homes, particularly over the period of 1980-2000, from the perspective of medicalization (Conrad and Schneider 1992=2003). We chose Children’s Home Y, which exhibited advancement the administration of psychotropic drugs to children, for research purposes, conducting semi-structured interviews with eight staff members working at the facility. Our research revealed that a large number of delinquent children resided at Children’s Home Y through the 1980s, and that it was an everyday occurrence for staff to restrain violent children. By the 1990s, however, as corporal punishment became taboo as children’s rights came to the fore, this type of punishment was no longer acceptable. As of the early 2000s, specialized mental health staff have been assigned to children’s homes, while full-time psychiatrists are now assigned to child consultation centers. At this time it became easier for children with behavioral problems to be diagnosed as ADHD, and psychotropic drugs have clearly have been prescribed more frequently. Handling of behavioral problems in these children saw a major shift from corporate punishment to administration of psychotropic drugs, along with a trend toward medicalization. At the same time, interviews with staff indicated a certain degree of uneasiness with regard to the possibility over-medication, as well as concern over side effects of psychotropic drugs

ホゴ サレルベキ コドモ ト シンケン セイゲン モンダイ ノ イチケイフ : ジドウ ヨウゴ ウンドウ トシテノ コドモ ノ ジンケン オ マモル タメ ニ シュウカイ 1968 77ネン

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the historical process of “ Symposium for Saving the Rights of Children” as social movement from late 1960s to 1970s in Japan and to reveal that this movement had many characteristics of claim-making activity (Spector & Kitsuse 1977) that had impacts on contemporary society. The major findings of this paper are as follows. First, this movement was the claim-making activity that emphasize that the coverage of “Child Protection” in official must be expanded to the children who were cared inside of their families. Second, the claim-making activity had started with the problematization of “Infanticide” in early 1970s in Japan. Third, the complete survey of child care institution was conducted at the end of “Symposium for Saving the Rights of Children” and the result of it was presented as Warrants (Best 2008) of this social movement. This paper finally discusses implication of these findings for child welfare of contemporary society

Polarity of Public Perception over General Consent : Survey on Consciousness of Healthy Japanese Participants in Brain Database Projects

Researches based on clinical big data and Researches using bio-bank are recently increasing. In this study we discuss the issues involving general consent through a quantitative analysis of a national random sample survey in Japan. Among the 3,295 respondents, 42% of respondents agreed to general consent in some form. On the other hand, 58% of respondents preferred “tiered consent,” or “specific consent.” We interpreted this result as polarity of public perception over general consent. Referring to logistic regression analysis, the likelihood of preferring general consent increased with age (p<0.05), and “benefit of participating in research” was positively correlated, and “anxiety about participating in research” and “mindset that brain imaging is special” negatively correlated to the affirmative view of general consent (p<0.001)

Effects of verapamil and lidocaine on two components of the re-entry circuit of verapamil-sensitive idiopathic left ventricular tachycardia

AbstractOBJECTIVESWe characterized pharmacologically the slow conduction zone of verapamil-sensitive idiopathic left ventricular tachycardia (ILVT) with regard to the late diastolic potential (LDP).BACKGROUNDWe showed that the slow conduction zone of ILVT could be divided into two components by LDP; that is, the distal component with a tachycardia-dependent conduction delay property and the proximal one without it.METHODSElectrophysiologic studies were performed in eight consecutive patients. The LDP was recorded during left ventricular (LV) mapping during ILVT. Entrainment was performed from the right ventricular outflow tract while recording LDP. The effects of lidocaine (1 mg/kg body weight) and verapamil (0.5 or 1.0 mg) were examined during entrainment.RESULTSThe LDPs preceding the Purkinje potential (PP) were serially recorded from the upper third to the middle of the LV septum along the narrow longitudinal line. The ventricular tachycardia (VT) cycle length increased after lidocaine (p < 0.05), and further after verapamil (p < 0.05). The increments in the VT cycle length after administration of the drugs strongly correlated with those in LDP-PP (r > 0.9 for both drugs). The interval from the ventricular potential to LDP was unchanged after administration of the drugs. In one patient, verapamil terminated VT by local conduction block between LDP and PP. The LDP-PP measured during entrainment increased after lidocaine, and further after verapamil, whereas the interval from the stimulus to LDP remained unchanged.CONCLUSIONSThe component distal to LDP is mainly calcium channel-dependent and partly depressed sodium channel-dependent. The proximal component is considered to be sodium channel-dependent (normal)

Eye contact facilitates awareness of faces during interocular suppression

Eye contact captures attention and receives prioritized visual processing. Here we asked whether eye contact might be processed outside conscious awareness. Faces with direct and averted gaze were rendered invisible using interocular suppression. In two experiments we found that faces with direct gaze overcame such suppression more rapidly than faces with averted gaze. Control experiments ruled out the influence of low-level stimulus differences and differential response criteria. These results indicate an enhanced unconscious representation of direct gaze, enabling the automatic and rapid detection of other individuals making eye contact with the observer