Dr. Beena Johnson, MD

Adolescence our concern

Posted on April 6, 2009 by Beena Johnson

Adolescence is the most fascinating and crucial stage in the life of an individual. Adolescence covers 10 to 19 years of life. It is the period of rapid physical changes and deep emotional changes. Adolescents form significant proportion of the population of any nation, and the care of the adolescents should be of great concern for every pediatrician.

Why We Are Concerned About Adolescence?

Adolescence represents high risk period in human life cycle and requires special attention by everyone involved in health care. Importance should be given to the nutrition and physical growth. An adolescent is under lots of pressure from parents, teachers, peer
group and the society. Adolescence is viewed as a period of stress. About to 10 to 20 % of adolescents experience severe emotional reactivity. They show impulsive behavior and rebelliousness. Personality development is completed during adolescence. It is also the time for deciding the future career. Hence proper scientific guidance is necessary during adolescence to lead them towards successful adulthood.

Stress in Adolescence

Teenagers experience strong feelings of anxiety, confusion, pressure to succeed, financial uncertainty, and other fears while growing up. Stress is a normal universal human experience and proper management of stress in adolescents is highly essential for success in life. Common causes of stress include exam related stress, other school related stress, personal stress and family related stress.

Symptoms of stress

An adolescent under stress may present with emotional, behavioural or
psychosomatic symptoms. Deterioration in scholastic performance and lack of concentration in studies are common presentations of a student under stress. And hence, any adolescent presenting with forgetfulness and scholastic backwardness needs individualised evaluation to find out the underlying stress. Anxiety, depression and even deliberate self harm can occur in an adolescent under stress. Stress can lead an adolescent towards alcohol or other substance abuse.
Psychosomatic symptoms are quite common and it manifests in the form of somatoform disorders in adolescents. The common somatoform disorders seen in adolescents include pain disorder, somatoform autonomic dysfunction and conversion disorders.

How to prevent stress related problems in adolescents

Role of family members

Adolescence is a period of growth and change. So it is essential that parents are always willing to support them and guide them in the correct direction. Parents should give them all the love, care and affection they wish for. Recognize their good deeds and complement
them. Parents should also point out their mistakes and motivate them to excel in life. Express concern, but not criticism. Be a good role model and friend.

Responsibilities of Adolescents

Use adolescence as a time of training by accepting more responsibility for doing the duties in the best way. Peer group pressure is significant during this period. It is not just something to be used as an excuse when someone gets into trouble! Be assertive to avoid unwanted peer pressure, as well as negative influences by media. Peer group can have
tremendous influence on your life, so be friendly with positive people and be a positive person yourself. Try to be empathetic with parents and teachers. Improve the study skills and be a motivated student.

Management of Stress

Role of experts in Adolescent Guidance

Individualized detailed evaluation after establishing good rapport is essential to find out the underlying stress in adolescents. They need counseling to improve self esteem and motivation. Associated learning problems should be managed with individualised remedial training programmes. Family guidance is also an essential aspect of the
management of stress in adolescents. Life skills training helps adolescents to deal effectively with demands and challenges of everyday life.

Conclusion

Adolescence is the period of prime importance in the life of a person. Hence care of adolescents is the need of the hour. Its the duty of the parents, teachers and health professionals to guide adolescents towards excellence in life.

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Anxiety disorders in adolescents

Posted on February 28, 2009 by Beena Johnson

Adolescence is the most crucial stage in the life of an individual. Anxiety in adolescents can lead to multiple physical symptoms, scholastic backwardness and problems in personality development. Hence it is important that anxiety disorders in adolescents
are identified and managed at the earliest so that we can lead the adolescents to a healthy adulthood.

Normal and Pathological Anxiety

Normal anxiety is a diffuse unpleasant vague sense of apprehension often accompanied by autonomic symptoms. It enables a person to take measures to deal with a threat. Pathological anxiety is an inappropriate response to a given stimulus and it will hinder developmentally appropriate adaptive behavior.

Anxiety Disorders

The common anxiety disorders seen in adolescents are panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, specific phobia and social phobia.
In panic disorder, the individual experiences recurrent unexpected panic attacks characterized by discrete periods of intense fear associated with palpitation, sweating, trembling, chest discomfort, abdominal distress or dizziness and fear of impending death. Usually there will be a precipitating stress. Panic disorder may or may not be associated with agoraphobia.
In generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), there is free floating anxiety about a number of events or activities. The adolescents with GAD can have restlessness, difficulty in concentration, muscle tension, irritability, autonomic overactivity, recurrent somatic symptoms or sleep disturbance.
Obsessive compulsive disorder is characterized by recurrent obsessions and compulsions causing marked distress and significantly interfering with the normal routine activities, academic functioning and social relationships.
Adolescents with specific phobia will have marked and persistent fear cued by the presence or anticipation of a specific object or situation. Exposure to the phobic stimulus invariably provokes immediate anxiety response. In social phobia there is marked and persistent fear of one or more social situations in which the person is exposed to unfamiliar people or to possible scrutiny by others. The exposure to the feared situation provokes anxiety and the feared social situations are usually avoided.

Treatment of anxiety disorders

Anxiety disorders, if diagnosed early, can be managed effectively by psychological therapies such as cognitive behaviour therapy, relaxation therapy, desensitization ( for phobias), insight oriented psychotherapy, family therapy etc. In severe cases, pharmacotherapy may be indicated.

Conclusion

Anxiety Disorders will cause deterioration in the academic performance of adolescents. If untreated, it can lead to substance abuse, depression, deliberate self harm or even hypertension and heart disease in future. Early diagnosis and management of Anxiety Disorders is essential for guiding the adolescents towards excellence in life.

Posted in My medical specialty | Tagged generalized anxiety disorder, Normal and Pathological Anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, panic disorder, Treatment of anxiety disorders | Leave a comment

Emotional intelligence and adolescents

Posted on February 8, 2009 by Beena Johnson

Introduction

Intelligence is the capacity to engage in valid, abstract reasoning in relation to an area of information. In the realm of emotions, intelligence involves understanding the general nature of emotions, the meanings of individual emotions and the capacity to uncover similarities and differences among emotions. How human beings develop emotionally is of core importance in building good interpersonal relationships. Scientific studies have suggested that emotional intelligence helps a person to become successful in life. Hence developing high emotional intelligence is essential for an adolescent to excel in future life.

What is emotional intelligence?

According to Daniel Goleman, “emotional intelligence is a master aptitude, a capacity that profoundly affects all other abilities, either facilitating or interfering with them”. The term emotional intelligence encompasses the following five characteristics and abilities:

1. Self awareness
2. Self management
3. Self motivation
4. Empathy
5. Social skills

These competencies are measured in determining the emotional quotient (EQ) of and individual.

Why adolescents need high emotional intelligence?

Adolescents who are academically brilliant may sometimes be socially and interpersonally inept. Despite possessing a high IQ, success may not automatically follow. But by increasing the emotional quotients, the adolescents can become more productive and successful at what they do and they can also help others to become more productive and successful too. High emotional intelligence will definitely help an adolescent to reduce stress by decreasing conflict, improving relationships and understanding.

Emotional intelligence and success in academic performance

Research suggests that emotional health is fundamental to effective learning. The most critical element for a student’s success in school is an understanding of how to learn. Some key ingredients for this understanding are – confidence, self control, capacity to communicate and ability to co-operate. These traits are all aspects of emotional intelligence. An intelligent adolescent who is self aware and intrinsically motivated will definitely have very high academic performance. Adolescents with high emotional intelligence will also have good relationship with teachers and parents which also help them to perform well in their examinations. Students with good EQ will not have conflicts with peer group and are not likely to use drugs or alcohol.

Conclusion

Emotional intelligence enables the adolescent to develop very good interpersonal relationships and to have better social support. It is a highly desirable and personally valuable attribute to possess. Through life skills training and scientific guidance, we can improve the emotional intelligence of adolescents and thus we can lead them towards a very successful future life.