Women with autism at higher risk for suicide, study finds

By Louise KinrossUtah women with autism were over three times more likely to die by suicide than their peers without autism between 2013 and 2017, according to the first American population-based study on suicidality in autism.  The study, published in Autism Research this month, used surveillance data in Utah from 1998 to 2017. The researchers broke the study into four periods of five years. During the first three periods, the risk of suicide...

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While in hospital, Fiaz creates bright, bold, energetic art

By Louise KinrossFiaz Rahman has had a rough six months. The 18-year-old developed a pressure injury in August that prevented him from going to school for months. Just before Christmas he was hospitalized at Holland Bloorview. "More than physically, it was emotionally painful, because I wasn't in control of it," he says. "I didn't intend for it to happen. It ruined my lifestyle. I couldn't enjoy my summer or go to school. It was difficult for...

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'I like a nurse who's caring, sometimes funny, always positive'

By Louise KinrossJustin Chau is an 11-year-old inpatient at Holland Bloorview. He's writing a story about his life following a surgery to remove a brain tumour. He loves orange, because it’s the colour of flames, drawing abstract art and camping. We spoke about his story and experiences in hospital. BLOOM: You wrote that when you woke up after your 10-hour surgery, everything felt fake. What do you mean? Justin Chau: I wasn’t aware of where I...

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Doctors need to get comfortable with intellectual disability

By Louise Kinross Global developmental delay (GDD) isn't a long-term diagnosis, write two doctors in a commentary piece this week in The Journal of Pediatrics. So why does it appear so frequently in medical charts across a person's lifetime? "Disability becomes the Lord Voldemort of clinical medicine—something so terrible it ought not to be named," write Dr. Eyal Cohen, a pediatrician at SickKids in Toronto, and...

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What works in children's rehab, and why, is researcher's passion

By Louise KinrossDe-Lawrence Lamptey has a PhD in rehabilitation science and a master’s degree in clinical psychology. He has right-sided weakness related to cerebral palsy and grew up in Ghana. “When I was growing up I was less aware of my disabilities than I am now,” he says. “I was born with a disability, but I was never raised as a person with a disability.” De-Lawrence is a postdoctoral fellow doing research in inclusion and participation...

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With Aicam on the case, hospitalized kids have fun

By Louise KinrossAicam Chuong has been a nurse at Holland Bloorview for over 30 years—first as a student, then working with children hospitalized here with complex medical conditions and acquired brain injury related to trauma or illness. She’s seen the hospital through four name changes and two sites. A patient recently dubbed her a vampire for the precision with which she always draws blood on the first poke.BLOOM: How did you get into...

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Retarded, imbecile, morons. Why does The New York Times still use these words?

By Louise Kinross I could hardly believe my eyes when this New York Times piece popped into my feed yesterday: Donald Trump and his Team of Morons. Way back in 2012 I wrote to Philip Corbett, the Times' then associate managing editor of Standards,  to criticize the paper's use of the words "retarded" and "imbecile" in headlines.  On Oct. 26 of that year, Corbett wrote to say "our health editor and our mental-health reporter both...

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Adults with cerebral palsy at higher risk for depression, anxiety

Mathias Castaldo is a member of Holland Bloorview's youth advisory and participated in our Dear Everybody campaign to end disability stigma. “The minute we tell someone they cannot do something because they are disabled, we disempower them. We take away their desire to have dreams and to achieve those dreams, and we ultimately take away that person’s spirit.” By Louise Kinross Adults with cerebral palsy (CP) have higher rates of depression...

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Why a new face-scanning genetics app worries me

Photo in Nature, by Michael Ares/The Palm Beach Post via ZUMA. This girl has Cornelia de Lange syndrome, a condition with distinct facial features that an app called Face2Gene was taught to identify and distinguish from other rare disorders. By Louise KinrossYesterday, Nature reported on a paper in Nature Medicine about a smartphone app called Face2Gene that helps clinicians diagnose rare genetic conditions by analyzing photos of faces. According...

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