Asthma is a chronic disease that involves attacks of impaired breathing and can be fatal. Symptoms include coughing, wheezing and chest pain. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 25 million Americans had asthma in 2009. The good news is treatment is improving. Fifty-two percent of the asthma patients in the 2009 survey suffered an attack in 2008 - that's down 8% since 2000. Asthma is more common in children than adults and more common in women than men. Just realizing there are more than 3,000 asthma deaths a year in the U.S. can "take your breath away".
Epilepsy is a brain disorder that involves repeated, spontaneous seizures of any kind. It strikes 1 in 26 - or 3.85% - of Americans. These numbers were the result of research done by Columbia University, which analyzed 2 decades of data from Rochester, Minnesota. Epilepsy is fairly common in infants - 100 per 100,000 - but the number decreases as children get older. For adults epilepsy risk increases after age 50. Also, more men are affected than women. According to the research, about 12 million Americans alive in 2010 will develop epilepsy - or perhaps more aptly put, will be seized by the disorder.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder is a debilitating illness that's characterized by recurrent, unwanted thoughts and repetitive behaviors and affects more than 2 million Americans. Treatment consists primarily of cognitive behavioral therapy, which includes talk therapy and exposure and response prevention. A partial list of OCD's many symptoms includes intense distress with things out of order, repeatedly checking that the stove is off or that the doors are locked, excessive hand washing, counting in certain patterns and doing the same thing over and over. Of course, if you clean the kitchen over and over, you might not have OCD. You might have children.
Stuttering is thought to be a neurological problem. Stutterers tend to have decreased white matter in an area of the brain's left hemisphere that involves motor speech. One's mouth structure, tongue and vocal cords have nothing to do with it. There's also a genetic link. About 60% of children who stutter have family histories of stuttering. However, 70%-80% of children recover spontaneously. Others will need therapy. More than 3 million Americans stutter - more men than women; but Tiger Woods overcame childhood stuttering. So did Marilyn Monroe and Charles Darwin. And because experts say parents can't cause stuttering, parents can overcome guilt.
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