In infancy, behaviour that is problematic for parents stems from intrinsic, biological attributes. Colic, excessive crying and fussing are usually attributable to individual biological predispositions, such as particular temperament profiles.

It is often in the toddler period that a child’s behaviour becomes a problem for parents. Temper tantrums, eating problems, problems at bedtime, and aggressive behaviour [...]

I have often been told people can’t let an attack or the anxiety happen because other people may see it happening. So what if they do. Why are we giving our mental health away to everyone else? We can spend all day trying to hide our symptoms from employers, work colleagues, family and friends. The [...]

All people—children and adults—move through distinctly different sleep states which progress from drowsiness to very deep sleep. In the waking state we are rational and functional. In non-REM sleep the body rests and restores itself. In REM sleep the mind is active again and dreaming occurs (REM stands for “rapid eye movement”—a stage of [...]

Another means of preventing the fluid from building up again is to inject either a chemotherapy drug or a radioactive substance into the peritoneal cavity. This is likely to cause fever and pain over the next day or so. Although some cancer cells may be killed, this method acts mainly by sealing the peritoneal cavity, [...]

Cluster headache often goes untreated because it is not always clearly recognised.

It is regarded, like migraine, as a vascular headache. That is, changes in the walls of the arteries in the head are believed to trigger the pain.

Unlike migraine, which is far more common in women, cluster headache is almost entirely a male disease — [...]

The structures making up the floor of the pelvis may be weakened and so lead to prolapse where the womb or uterus falls down into the vagina and the bladder and rectum also fall into the vagina.

All these symptoms can either be reversed or prevented by taking oestrogen supplements, but this is an area of [...]

Diabetes is a chronic condition in which there is too much sugar (glucose) in the blood. Keeping the sugar level normal in the blood needs the right amount of a hormone called insulin. Insulin gets the sugar out of the blood and into the body’s muscles where it is used to provide energy for the [...]

Initially, positive results from the behaviour modification approach proved as short lived as other methods of weight control. Although these techniques have value in themselves as part of a wider complex of behavioural interventions, in practice of course, not all behaviours are so simple. In a review of the research on behavioural interventions for weight [...]

In the traditional teaching of energy balance, it has been assumed that, in humans, there is a relatively free conversion of non-fat calories to fat calories for storage. This is no longer so; now fat nutrients are thought to be more fattening than nutrients gained from either carbohydrate or protein.

The reasons that fat was thought [...]

Bronchiolitis is a serious condition occurring in infants under the age of two years, most often during cold winter months. The bronchioles, the tubes into which the larger air-containing bronchi divide, become inflamed and infected, and allergies may play a part. It often recurs, and it is often confused with asthma. It may be caused [...]