If you are 18 years old or older, and you're reading this, you have the right to make your own medical decisions. But that could change in an instant.
For example, an accident or illness could leave you -- temporarily or permanently -- unable to make those decisions.
That is why it is so important that every adult have a carefully drafted Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care. The International Task Force's (ITF) Protective Medical Decisions Document (PMDD) is one such legal document that allows a person to name someone to make those decisions in the event they cannot make them for themselves.
Parents of college students take it for granted that, if they are paying for their child's medical care, they always have the right to make medical decisions for a son or daughter who becomes unable to do so. But that is not the case.
In fact, they may even be unable to get information about a hospitalized adult child's medical condition.
However, the person who is designated in a PMDD to make health care decisions can have access to such information. Young adults can designate a parent as their decision maker so that, in the event of a sports injury, illness or accident, someone who knows and loves them will have the authority to protect their lives and well-being. That's why a PMDD should be one of the necessities given to each and every 18-year-old.
To obtain a PMDD package from the ITF for yourself, for a college student, or for anyone else, call 800.958.5678 and ask about the PMDD package.
Study Links Brain Defects to Pedophilia (2007)
Study Links Brain Defects to Pedophilia (2007)
Missing Tissue; Psychiatrist says he was taken aback by results
A Canadian study involving MRI brain scans has uncovered intriguing new evidence that pedophiles are compelled to commit their reviled crimes because of neurological flaws.
The brains of such offenders seem to contain considerably less white matter than those of non-sexual criminals, the research concluded. That missing tissue could indicate a breakdown in the neurological network that processes erotic signals -- leading to an abnormal attraction to children, the authors theorize.
Dr. James Cantor, the psychologist who led the study, said he was taken aback by the variations between the pedophiles and non-sexual offenders.
"It's actually quite a dramatic difference," he said. "I expected ... to find some tiny little area of the brain that might be different between one group and the other. Instead I found these large swaths of material that was very low in volume [in pedophiles]."
Those brain deficiencies might be caused by something that harmed the fetus while their mothers were pregnant. If so, identifying that influence could help prevent the creation of potential new pedophiles, said the paper just published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research.
Outside experts raised some questions about the validity of the results, but said the findings, if borne out with more research, would be a major step forward in understanding sexual impulses generally.
"If it turns out to be found in everyone who has this problem, it would
[point to] the mechanism for not only normal sexual interest but
abnormal sexual interest too," said Paul Federoff, a psychologist at
the Royal Ottawa Hospital who works with pedophiles. "That would be a
huge development."
However, he said the research shows only a correlation between the
brain deficiency and pedophilia, not necessarily a cause-and-effect
relationship.
Scientists have traditionally believed that having a sexual preference
for children was the result of environmental factors, such as sexual
abuse or other trauma in childhood.
The focus of Dr. Cantor's research, though, has been exploring possible
biological causes. Other studies he conducted, for instance, have found
that pedophiles are more likely to be left-handed and have low IQs,
both potential indicators of a neurological deficit.
For the latest research, he had MRI brain scans performed on 65 people
he identified as pedophiles, and a control group of 62 criminals with
no history of sexual offences.
Digital analysis of the MRI images indicated that the pedophiles tended
to have smaller volumes of white matter over a relatively large area of
the brain.
In simple terms, white matter is like the computer cable that links
segments of grey matter, the brain's computers. The areas of white
matter where pedophiles had deficiences happen to connect cortical
regions that, other research suggests, process and respond to sexual
clues. It is possible pedophiles have a disconnection, or insufficient
connection, in that sexual-response network, the paper says.
That may either lead to pedophilia directly, or make people more
susceptible to the problem if they are victims of outside influences,
like child abuse, the study suggests.
Dr. Patrick Baillie, a Calgary psychologist who works with pedophiles,
said the research is far from definitive, partly because some of those
Dr. Cantor considered pedophiles may not truly meet the definition.
However, he said the notion of a neurological explanation for
pedophilia makes sense to him. It might be the brain differences are
caused by outside trauma at a young age, and the sexual preferences of
that age are "locked in" for life, Dr. Baillie said.
Dr. Cantor said his arguments in favour of a biological explanation for
pedophiles seem to resonate both with victims and parents of the
offenders, based on letters he has received. Mothers of pedophiles have
told him they were relieved to think that it was not necessarily
something they did to their sons that turned them into sexual offenders.
[Tom Blackwell, National Post December 18, 2007,
,
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=175150 ]
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