[senco-forum] Underdiagnosed disorders: - long-sightedness

I could go on- but perhaps this sn't waht you have in mind, David?

As well as myopia, longsightedness is often undiagnosed - the child may
be seen to have 'eagle eyesight' because they can read signs etc at a
distance, but can have problems focussing on a computer screen or book
Cheers
Judith

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Judith Stansfield
Farm Cottage, 24 East Road, Melsonby,Richmond DL10 5NF
stass at onyxnet.co.uk  
01325 718139   07990572365
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-----Original Message-----
From: senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
[mailto:senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk] On Behalf Of David
Bowles
Sent: 02 July 2007 20:36
To: senco-forum
Subject: [senco-forum] Underdiagnosed disorders: - for example
Sjogren'ssyndrome

> I could go on- but perhaps this sn't waht you have in mind, David?

Actually this is exactly the sort of thing I had in mind.

Also it's not just the lesser known disorders that get missed.
Sometimes the most blatantly obvious potential explanations are
passed over because it's been assumed these must have been
addressed already.

Here I have in mind myopia (plain old shortsightedness) with the
example I came across a few years back of a year eight child who had
been Statemented for several years because she had 'problems with
concepts'. It took me less than two lessons to work out the real
problem was she couldn't see the board when seated more than six feet
behind it. Problem was the school's staff (including the Senco) were
so embarrassed at having missed this blatantly obvious explanation for
her problems they refused to do anything about this despite my
protestations!!! Incidentally this also explained her social isolation
within her tutor group -- she couldn't identify the faces of her peers
unless they stood just a few inches from her face.

Myself I've also just discovered (within the past two weeks) I have
the auto-immune disease "Sjogren's Syndrome", a disease that's often
misidentified as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME) or Lupus.

What surprises me is this disorder is comparatively common with around
4% of older adults meeting the full diagnostic criteria -- especially
women in whom it's more prevalent by a factor of nine-to-one compared
to men. However my doctor tells me only four of his patients are
diagnosed with this syndrome ...in a practice that has around 10,000
on their list.

So what about the 346 or so other patient's on his list who also have
this potentially debilitating condition and likely will never receive
the correct diagnosis? It's not as if this condition is easy to miss
as the main symptoms are chronic 'dry-eyes' and / or a 'dry-mouth'. In
women vaginal dryness is a common symptom that's all too often
miss-attributed to menopausal changes or simply 'getting older'.

Let me put this another way: If your school has around 100 staff
likely around four of them (mostly women) will have already developed
Sjogren syndrome without yet knowing it -- more if your staff are
predominantly female, despite increasingly suffering from unexplained
chronic tiredness and periodic episodes of 'brain fog' that are often
associated with this disease. Some may 'burn out' prematurely or opt
for retirement unnecessarily early -- to the detriment of their final
pensions, whereas if they'd received the right diagnosis and
treatments that can substantially alleviate the symptoms the later
half of their teaching career might have been far more enjoyable.

Another good example is ADHD, a disorder that's far more recognised
now in children but is still chronically under-diagnosed in adults.
The same goes for OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) whose symptoms
typically start manifesting as major problems for both the child and
their school from mid- to late-puberty onwards.

...but if there's a resource where teachers, parents, health-care
workers and others can easily find out about these and many other
comparatively common but nevertheless grossly under-diagnosed
disorders this could help save so much misery.

David Bowles

PS: Sjogren Syndrome can also affect children and some parents
get diagnosed after recognising they have similar symptoms to
their siblings.