The 'Learning Curve' of Living With Asperger's

By Lisa Esposito
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, April 18 (HealthDay News) -- Asperger's syndrome is disappearing as an official diagnosis, but people who live with its symptoms will continue to struggle.

"I would say that Asperger's is sort of like 'autism light,'" said Liane Holliday Willey, senior editor of the Autism Spectrum Quarterly. "Our verbal skills tend to be more developed, and we have less moments of going inward. We don't present as obvious, so we kind of fly under the radar."

"But our [lack of] ability to read your mind or read your motives is a big red flag," she said. "And that's what gets us hurt physically and emotionally and career-wise."

Holliday Willey, 53, has written books on life with Asperger's and serves as an autism consultant in Grand Rapids, Mich.

"I've had very bad things happen because I couldn't read perspectives," she said. "I'm pretty smart, and I'm educated and you'd meet me at the mall and think, 'There's a quirky girl.' You'd never have any idea how much of a struggle this all is for me."

Certain situations can be too much, Holliday Willey said.

"When I sit down to take a test, to interact with a human, to be on my own without support -- all of these groovy strategies I've created over these past 50 years can disappear pretty quickly," she said. "So I can kind of go back to a more obvious state of autism."

"Now I can take a minute to go reboot my hard drive and figure out how to behave, until it gets to the point where I'm just emotionally tired and I make my exit," she said.

Brian King, a relationship coach for people on the autism spectrum, was diagnosed with Asperger's in 2007.

"I've learned a lot of strategies that allow me to manage," said King, who lives in Illinois. "And if by virtue of those strategies I'm able to manage life more effectively, am I by any means beyond the Asperger's? No way."

He said children with Asperger's need a lot more than just traditional talk therapy.

"You need to work with this child's entire support system -- parents, siblings, educators -- to give this kid the best chance to succeed," King said. "People on the spectrum are unique in the way they're challenged and the way they need to be approached and to learn the skills they need to succeed in life. The learning curve can be huge."

Eric Lipshaw, a 21-year-old student at Oakland University in Rochester, Mich., found out he had Asperger's at age 7.

"Obviously it made things harder with friendships over the years," Lipshaw said. "Social cues, and I was oversensitive to noises and smells. I remember often in elementary and middle school I'd spend almost an hour or two a week in the [nurse's] office. I'd get terrible headaches from the fluorescent light bulbs cycling.

"I was stuck, I was rigid, I absolutely despised changes in schedule," Lipshaw said. "I was pretty much bullied my entire high school career."

"My parents worked their [rear ends] off -- and I'll love them forever for it -- to make sure I was as well-adjusted as I could be," he said.

Today "nobody would realize I'm anything but a little eccentric until I disclose to them that I have Asperger's," said Lipshaw, who has a campus radio show and hopes to work as an on-air radio talent after graduation.

Decades ago, Karen Rodman married a man who "I knew all along was intelligent, a musician, quiet -- but I did not understand to what extent [he had problems]."

It wasn't until many years later that she realized his issues went far beyond being what she called "ornery." The local medical community was no help, Rodman said.

Eventually, as she was contemplating divorce, the marriage counselor pulled her aside. "She told me that she thought my husband had Asperger's syndrome and Tourette's [syndrome]," Rodman said.

Rodman had never heard of Asperger's. She spent the next weekend in book stores reading anything she could find on autism and Asperger's.

"Light bulbs over my head the more I read," she said. "My husband had been living a lifetime with two neurological-biological-developmental disabilities -- and no one knew it except his family, behind closed doors." She boils down her existence as a "neurotypical" -- a term for someone not on the autism spectrum -- spouse to one word: lonely.

In 1997, Rodman founded the international support group Families of Adults Affected by Asperger's Syndrome.

Holliday Willey's father also had Asperger's for most of his life, but only discovered that as an older man.

"My father was 75 when he was diagnosed," she said. "At that point, he said, 'Now I understand why I was bullied. Now I understand why I was never promoted to management.' He was a brilliant engineer. But he didn't have that social communication, that nonverbal communication, those sensory problems adjusted for."

Her mother -- the neurotypical in the family -- had a lot to deal with, Holliday Willey said.

"My mom was under the impression that I didn't like her, didn't love her, didn't respect her. I didn't hug her," she said. "Now that she knows it was not her -- it was our neural wiring -- she'll say, 'Give me a hug if you hate it or not; it's for me.' So I'll hug her and go, 'Eww, that's enough, let go,' and she'll tease me about it."

Copyright © 2013 HealthDay. All rights reserved. SOURCES: Liane Holliday Willey, senior editor, Autism Spectrum Quarterly, and autism consultant, Grand Rapids, Mich.; Brian R. King, L.C.S.W., relationship coach, Illinois; Eric Lipshaw, college student, Oakland University, Rochester, Mich.; Karen Rodman, president and founder, Families of Adults Affected with Asperger's Syndrome

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More U.S. Couples Living Together Instead of Marrying, CDC Finds

And more women getting pregnant while cohabiting

By Amanda Gardner

HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, April 4 (HealthDay News) -- Many more American women are living with their partners rather than tying the knot, a new government survey finds.

And they live together longer than couples in the recent past, and many more get pregnant before marriage, according to the survey released Thursday by the National Center for Health Statistics, which is part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Nearly half of women aged 15 to 44 years old "cohabited" outside of marriage between 2006 and 2010, compared with 43 percent in 2002 and 34 percent in 1995. The report is based on in-person interviews with more than 12,000 women in that age group.

One reason more people are living together is a well-documented delay in the age at which people are marrying, said study lead author Casey Copen, a demographer with the National Center for Health Statistics.

"Cohabiting couples may be waiting for improved financial stability before they make a decision to marry and, in the process, become pregnant and have a baby," she said. "As you cohabit longer, there's more of a chance to become pregnant."

Many of these arrangements occur at a young age, with one-quarter of women cohabiting by age 20 and three-quarters saying they had lived with a partner by age 30.

During the first year of living together, nearly 20 percent became pregnant and went on to give birth, according to the report.

Along with this trend, fewer women reported getting married in the period from 2006 to 2010 than in either 2002 or 1995 (23 percent, 30 percent and 39 percent, respectively). Of those who became pregnant the first year, 19 percent got married within six months of the pregnancy, versus 32 percent in 1995.

Education and income play a role in how long women cohabit and whether they get pregnant or marry, Copen said.

"Those who have less than a high school degree are cohabiting for longer periods of time," Copen said. "Women who have a bachelor's degree or higher are more likely to move into marriage."

Less educated women were also more likely to become pregnant while they were living with their partner.

The rate of cohabitation increased in all racial and ethnic groups except for Asian women.

Here are some highlights of the report:

For the period between 2006 and 2010, 23 percent of recent births happened while the couple was living together, up from 14 percent in 2002.The length of time couples lived together averaged 22 months in 2006 to 2010, compared with 13 months in 1995.About 40 percent of people living together got married within the first three years, while 32 percent continued to live together and 27 percent broke up.More white women (44 percent) and foreign-born Hispanic women (42 percent) married their partners within the first three years of living together compared with only 31 percent each for black women and Hispanic women born in the United States.Women who had not finished high school were more likely to live with someone (70 percent) than women who had finished college or beyond (47 percent).Women with more education were more likely to marry than those with less education, 53 percent within three years versus 30 percent.

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Living Well With Age-Related Macular Degeneration

By Christina Boufis
WebMD Magazine - Feature

Amy Atcha, 47, began to suspect there was something wrong when her 72-year-old mother, Judith Arcy, wasn't able to read a menu or see the numbers on her cell phone. After a visit to the ophthalmologist, her mother's diagnosis turned out to be age-related dry macular degeneration (AMD), a chronic, degenerative eye disease that causes central vision loss.

AMD "doesn't come on all of a sudden," explains David M. Kleinman, MD, MBA, associate professor of ophthalmology at the Flaum Eye Institute, University of Rochester Medical Center, in Rochester, N.Y. With AMD, light-sensitive cells in the macula (the area responsible for seeing fine detail when you look straight ahead) gradually begin to deteriorate and die.

As the disease progresses, blind or blurry spots can appear in the center of your vision, making it difficult to read, drive, or even recognize faces. These blind spots can get bigger as the disease progresses. (Another form of the disease, wet AMD, is less common but often progresses more rapidly.) If you notice these signs, see an eye doctor for an exam.

"If you are diagnosed with early AMD, you can decrease the chances of losing vision," says Kleinman. "But you have to change your lifestyle." Here's how:

Quit the habit. "The first step is, clearly, don't smoke," says Kleinman. If you do, a quit-smoking program can help you stop, he suggests. Studies show that smokers have two to three times the risk of developing AMD than nonsmokers.

Eat a rainbow of brightly colored fruits and vegetables. "They have antioxidants that are very protective and supportive of retinal health," says Kleinman. Dark green leafy vegetables such as kale and Swiss chard are excellent choices, but spinach is "a pretty good surrogate," he says. A diet that includes fatty fish such as salmon and tuna, high in omega-3 fatty acids, may also help prevent AMD from progressing, according to the National Eye Institute (NEI).

Get regular checkups. Make appointments with your ophthalmologist, as well as your primary care doctor, to check cholesterol and blood pressure. Maintaining normal blood pressure and cholesterol may be helpful to slow progression of AMD, according to the NEI. Some research suggests that high blood pressure and high cholesterol may put the eyes at risk for AMD, explains Kleinman.

Consider a supplement. People with moderate AMD showed a 25% lower risk of vision loss when they took a formula of certain antioxidants and zinc, according to a 10-year clinical trial by the NEI. Talk to your doctor about the AREDS formula (from the Age-Related Eye Disease Study) to see if it might be right for you.

Get moving. The CDC recommends 150 minutes of exercise per week, but simply walking more may help, says Kleinman. Though researchers haven't proven exercise can slow AMD, it "helps maintain blood pressure, and keeps the blood vessels open and working," he explains. That means exercise may be as beneficial for eye health as it is for the rest of the body.

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