The Changing Landscape of Pediatric Neuro-developmental Disorders
Presented by: Robert Turner, MD, MSCR, QEEGD, BCN
Over the past 40 years in medicine and neurosciences, there has been a significant trend in more complex and more severe pediatric diseases of the developing nervous system – primarily due to significant environmental factors that have developed over the past 100 years.
Far from being clinicians who hope to be “better diagnosticians with better tests”, we are witnessing the dramatic worldwide increase (a true pandemic ) in the incidence and prevalence of damage, disorder, dysregulation, and disease involving the entire neuraxis – throughout the prenatal-to-senescence age range.
A host of factors are helping explain this influx of “dis-ease” (which will be reviewed in detail), and this tsunami of healthcare burden is creating a universal upheaval, crushing the worldwide medical system. Though worsening during the COVID-19 pandemic, this ever-changing, ever-crumbling landscape many, many years before this most recent crisis – and we are now witnessing the ever-increasing fallout as seen in human dysfunction and disease.
We in the healthcare profession are not helping to fundamentally address - nor cure - the roots of disorders. We are instead consumed with “treating” symptoms which are often a very deceptive “tip of the iceberg”. All too often, our seemingly infallible diagnostic ‘tests’ fail to detect an abnormality because we lack an understanding of the fundamental limitations of the tests we are using.
On the other hand, the proper study, understanding, and interpretation of readily available neurodiagnostic tests, such as EEG and QEEG, yield tremendous insights and clinical correlations into the underlying pathogenesis of abnormal symptoms. Among the many roots of disease, the spiritual, psychological, and physiological factors are important to evaluate together, since they operate in the “whole person” who presents for help from a healthcare provider.
Environmental toxins are currently among the most under-recognized factors impacting all species on earth. The most unrecognized environmental toxin, currently increasing at exponential rates, is human-derived electromagnetic radiation (EMR) in the forms of advancing technology and wireless connectomics and telecommunications. Though these are astounding tools for the advancement of society, they are also resulting in astounding manifestations of abnormalities affecting virtually every organ system in the body. This will be discussed in detail using the EEG as a springboard to discussion.