Archives for November 2017

By

About how stress affects IBS. To completely understand how stress affects the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), it is important to have an understanding of the brain-gut axis. The brain gut axis is a bidirectional continuous feedback loop between the gut and the brain. The gut has its own ‘second brain’ which controls the process of digestion and absorption and communicates back and forth from the main brain. The reason why we say the gut has its own brain is because the gut consists of a number of neurons which control the digestion, absorption, the mixing of food and muscle contractions.

The brain-gut axis is the reason why we have feelings like ‘butterflies in the stomach’ or a feeling of nausea before having to deliver an important presentation at work. This happens because the gut responds strongly to your thoughts and emotions. For example, even just   the thought of food can cause your stomach to release juices in preparation of the food.

IBS may not be caused by psychological factors but emotional stress worsens the symptoms of IBS The reason for this is  that movement and contraction of the GI tract can altered  by stress. The walls of the intestines are lined with layers of muscle that relax and contract in a rhythm that moves food from the stomach through the intestinal tract. During times of stress, individuals with IBS experience stronger contractions which last for a long time and cause gastrointestinal issues such as gas, bloating and diarrhoea.

The opposite could also happen with some people where the food is not digested properly causing constipation. Stress can also directly or indirectly affects the composition and growth of the micro biota in the gut which disturbs the two way communication between the gut and the brain and alters the functioning of the gut worsening the symptoms of IBS.

Recommendations to reduce stress:

  • Intervention from a mental health professional: a clinical psychologist may be able to use cognitive behavioural therapy to help manage the stress.
  • Exercise: Walking, running, hiking, riding a bike, yoga or tai chi are some ways of relieving stress.
  • Meditation and deep breathing exercises
  • Relaxation activities such as listening to music and spending time with friends and family.

Contact us for results focused nutritional advice

This article was written by our dietitian and nutritionist Juhi Bhambhaney. If you have questions regarding health and nutrition, make an appointment with one of our dietitians. We‘ll provide you with a simple and effective routine targeted to your concerns. Contact us today!

References

The post How stress affects IBS appeared first on ENT Wellbeing Sydney.

By

There are a number or speech errors, also know as phonological processes, that normally developing children produce. These include substitutions of back sounds, which are harder to produce, e.g. K and G sounds, for front sounds, e.g. T and D sound, causing them to say a word like ‘cat’ as ‘tat’. Children may also voice a sound, which does not require voicing, e.g. the ‘k’ in ‘dock’ when voiced may sound like ‘dog’.

Another common error is deleting one sound within a cluster such as the ‘st’ cluster without the ‘s’ which would turn a word such as ‘star’ into ‘tar’. Alternatively, the child may delete a sound at the start or at the end of a word and instead produce a word like ‘cat’ as ‘ca’.

Processes such as these are normal around 3-4 years of age however if these errors are present after this age, sometimes the child’s representation of the sound has been distorted during this time and when they attempt to pair the sound with a letter, their poor awareness of this sound causes spelling errors.

Some common examples of these spelling errors may include;

  • Substitution of sounds for the error sound they used to produce or deleting the sound entirely. This may cause a child to spell the word ‘cat’ or ‘tat’ and the word ‘dock’ may be spelt as ‘dog’.
  • Deleting sounds within a word when sounding out to spell.

This may look like ‘star’ being spelled as ‘sar’ or ‘cat being spelt as ‘ca’ or ‘at’

Errors such as these require specific speech pathology intervention targeted at improving sound awareness. This type of intervention improves a child’s ability to detect the sounds within a word, and manipulate these sounds in their head without the use of letters. For this reason, we refer to these phonological awareness skills as pre-literacy skills.

Once your child has mastered the ability to detect and manipulate the sounds without the symbolic alphabet letters, these same skills are then applied with the letters to detect and manipulate written words. This in turn allows them to correctly spell words and detect spelling mistakes they have made in order to self-correct independently.

Contact us for results focused speech therapy

This article was written by our Speech Pathologist Ashleigh Fattah who is a Speech Pathology Australia member. If you have speech pathology related questions, make an appointment. We‘ll provide you with simple and effective therapy targeted to your concerns. Contact us today.

The post How speech delay can impact reading and spelling appeared first on ENT Wellbeing Sydney.

By

There are a number or speech errors, also know as phonological processes, that normally developing children produce. These include substitutions of back sounds, which are harder to produce, e.g. K and G sounds, for front sounds, e.g. T and D sound, causing them to say a word like ‘cat’ as ‘tat’. Children may also voice a sound, which does not require voicing, e.g. the ‘k’ in ‘dock’ when voiced may sound like ‘dog’.

Another common error is deleting one sound within a cluster such as the ‘st’ cluster without the ‘s’ which would turn a word such as ‘star’ into ‘tar’. Alternatively, the child may delete a sound at the start or at the end of a word and instead produce a word like ‘cat’ as ‘ca’.

Processes such as these are normal around 3-4 years of age however if these errors are present after this age, sometimes the child’s representation of the sound has been distorted during this time and when they attempt to pair the sound with a letter, their poor awareness of this sound causes spelling errors.

Some common examples of these spelling errors may include;

  • Substitution of sounds for the error sound they used to produce or deleting the sound entirely. This may cause a child to spell the word ‘cat’ or ‘tat’ and the word ‘dock’ may be spelt as ‘dog’.
  • Deleting sounds within a word when sounding out to spell.

This may look like ‘star’ being spelled as ‘sar’ or ‘cat being spelt as ‘ca’ or ‘at’

Errors such as these require specific speech pathology intervention targeted at improving sound awareness. This type of intervention improves a child’s ability to detect the sounds within a word, and manipulate these sounds in their head without the use of letters. For this reason, we refer to these phonological awareness skills as pre-literacy skills.

Once your child has mastered the ability to detect and manipulate the sounds without the symbolic alphabet letters, these same skills are then applied with the letters to detect and manipulate written words. This in turn allows them to correctly spell words and detect spelling mistakes they have made in order to self-correct independently.

Contact us for results focused speech therapy

This article was written by our Speech Pathologist Ashleigh Fattah who is a Speech Pathology Australia member. If you have speech pathology related questions, make an appointment. We‘ll provide you with simple and effective therapy targeted to your concerns. Contact us today.

The post How speech delay can impact reading and spelling appeared first on ENT Wellbeing Sydney.

Call (02) 8188 2570
or our local call number 1300 123 368

Stay Connected

Contact Us

    Your Name (required)

    Your Email (required)

    Your Message

    [recaptcha]

     

    Translate

    ENT Clinic Sydney - Suite 70B, Royal Randwick Shopping Centre, 73 Belmore Road, Randwick, Sydney, Australia

    FRACS
    ASOHNS
    DAA
    MUH
    university-of-newcastle
    university-of-sydney
    university-of-queensland
    university-of-oxford
    australasian-college-of-dermatologists
    nutrition-blog-network
    speech-pathology-australia