If you didn’t catch this from a few days ago, I’m working on getting everything done for my summer semester at college, so I don’t have much time on my hands. As a result, I’ll be putting my homework on my blog until I have some extra spare time to blog, which may or may not be of any interest to you.

My Homework for Your Reading Pleasure

This is an extra credit paper I wrote for my abnormal psychology class about Jared Lee Loughner and the issues he has been having with schizophrenia and court appearances.

Back on August 1, 2011, I got a breaking news update via email from CNN: “Rep. Gabrielle Giffords returned to U.S. House chamber to a standing ovation to cast vote in favor of debt ceiling deal.” This updated reminded me of the Tucson, Arizona shooting that occurred back on January 8, 2011 that injured 14 people (one being United States Representative Gabrielle Giffords) and killed six people. Once the constant updates on the news ebbed away after a while, I stopped keeping track of the developments of the story. To get back to date, I went on Wikipedia to read about what ended up happening to perpetrator Jared Lee Loughner, and saw that he was, as expected, having some issues with psychological disorders.

On March 3, 2011, Loughner was indicted on charges of murder and attempted murder, adding up to 49 total counts. Six days later, Loughner pleaded not guilty to all 49 charges. During his court appear-ance on May 25, 2011, he was ruled not competent to stand trial after two individual medical evalua-tions and an outburst during the hearing. The trial was suspended indefinitely until Loughner receive proper treatment for his diagnosis of schizophrenia. His next court appearance will be on September 21, 2011, when he will be reevaluated for competency.

The troubling components of that decision are the indefinite suspension and the reevaluation. What would happen if Loughner is not found not competent to stand trial on September 21, 2011, and this drags on for years without a solution? Would Loughner be held in a psychiatric facility for the rest of his life without ever being convicted for his crime and sentenced to death?

To prevent this, on June 26, 2011, United States federal judge Larry Alan Burns ruled that prison doctors could forcibly medicate Loughner to make him competent to stand trial. A few weeks later, a federal appeals panel reversed the decision, saying, “Since Loughner has not been convicted of a crime, he is presumptively innocent and is therefore entitled to greater constitutional protections than a convicted inmate.” This means that Loughner now has permission to refuse psychiatric medication, and effectively never be considered competent to go on trial. This prompted me to do some research about forcible medication through involuntary treatment.

The whole issue of forcible treatment was introduced into law with Dr. J. B. O’Connor v. Kenneth Donaldson (1975) when the United States Supreme Court ruled that forcible hospitalization and treat-ment of an individual who is not dangerous and can survive safely by him/herself is a breach of his/her freedoms and rights. Four years later, Rubie Rogers v. Robert Okin, M.D. (1979) declared that a mental patient has the right to make treatment decisions in non-emergency circumstances, and in the case of an inability to make a decision, a full evidentiary hearing in court is required to allow substituted judg-ment (doing what the patient would most likely have decided to do without the patient being able to explicitly state so). In Washington, et al. v. Harper (1990), the United States Supreme Court ruled that an incarcerated inmate with a psychological disorder can be medicated against his or her will only in the circumstance that (s)he is a danger to him/herself and those around him/her.

Applying these case laws to Loughner’s situation, the main issue becomes determining if he is a danger to himself or those around him. The fact that Loughner went ahead and shot 19 people in an attempt to assassinate a politician seems like pretty solid evidence that he is a dangerous man, but according to the ruling of the federal appeals panel, they think otherwise. It has been proven and has become common knowledge that those who commit crimes are more likely to commit more crimes in the future than those who have not committed any crimes at all. Even though Loughner is confined, that does not stop him from committing more crimes while being held (such as assaulting and battering fellow inmates and facility staff). It seems vital that Loughner’s mental state and level of dangerousness is reanalyzed as soon as possible to make sure that he does not use a loophole in the law to end up being confined in a hospital for the rest of his life and never face the punishment he deserves.

If you didn’t catch this from a few days ago, I’m working on getting everything done for my summer semester at college, so I don’t have much time on my hands. As a result, for the next few days or so, I’ll be putting my homework on my blog, which may or may not be of any interest to you.

My Homework for Your Reading Pleasure

This is a paper I wrote for my abnormal psychology class about overmedication. The prompt was pretty broad; we were told to read an informational article in our textbooks about overmedication in general, and we were permitted to select a more specific topic on our own. I decided to go with misdiagnoses that result in overmedication.

Medicine is something that I can safely say most people appreciate. It can range anywhere from something as simple as over-the-counter anti-itch cream to relieve the disturbance from mosquito bites, to something as complex as Adrucil, which is used in the treatment of cancer. Not many people can argue that medication does not have a positive effect on our lives.

But sometimes, taking an unneeded medication will turn it from a wonder drug into a toxic substance. For example, the use of Adrucil outside of cancer treatment will not have any positive effects, and instead just cause myelotoxicity (bone marrow suppression), dermatitis (inflammation of the skin), and mucositis (inflammation of the mucous membranes in the gastrointestinal tract). Either way, that’s nothing to worry about, because we would never use a drug that we don’t need, right?

According to research done by Children and Adults Against Drugging America (CHAADA), in the past 25 years, the number of children diagnosed with attention deficit disorder (ADD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has increased by approximately 1200% (one thousand two hundred percent). Are children who are born today drastically more likely to have ADD or ADHD than children born 25 years ago? Or is there something else affecting the rate of diagnoses, and ultimately, the rate of children receiving medication for ADD and ADHD that they might not even have?

A good place to start would be to look at what makes a child eligible to be diagnosed with ADD and ADHD. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, which is part of the National Institutes of Health and a component of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, a child must demonstrate the symptoms of ADHD for six months at a higher degree than other children of similar age. For ADHD with inattention, a child might be easily distracted, forgetful, unfocused, bored, or slow. For ADHD with hyperactivity, a child might be fidgety, squirmy, extremely talkative, constantly in motion, or unable to do quiet activities. For ADHD with impulsivity, a child might be impatient, inappropriate, emotionally unrestrained, or interruptive.

The key problem with this process of diagnoses is that it is relative to other children of similar age. There is obviously an above and below average for everything, but where do these turn into extremes? How does one determine if the prevalence of symptoms is too great to be considered just above average and how do we keep this consistent enough so we do not have situations where some pediatricians would diagnose a child with ADHD while another pediatrician would not?

On top of that, many of the symptoms of ADHD can be considered personality traits or undisciplined behavior. For example, a child with a dull personality might be seen as always bored, and could be misinterpreted as inattentive and distracted. A child who is not disciplined could be restless and interjective, but a little bit of conditioning could turn the child into a socially acceptable person. On top of that, some of the symptoms could be caused by completely different problems. For example, an ear infection could cause hearing problems, which can be misinterpreted as inattention. A child with depression as a result of anxiety or a sudden life-changing event (such as the death of a family member or a parents’ divorce) can be seen as always down and dull, which can be misinterpreted as inattention. From this viewpoint, it is clear that the diagnosis of ADHD is a surprisingly subjective. Unfortunately, there seems to be a relatively objective connection between ADHD and medication – according to data collected by Dr. Gretchen LeFever of Eastern Virginia Medical School, 84% of children diagnosed with ADHD received a prescription for medication.

With the debatable methods of ADHD diagnosis and the shockingly drastic increase of the number of diagnoses, it is clear that there is a problem with overdiagnosis and overmedication. People are very well justified when they express their concern for overmedication, and it is vital to our future generations’ health that we take action as soon as possible and start medicating only those who really need it.

If you didn’t catch this from yesterday, I’m working on getting everything done for my summer semester at college, so I don’t have much time on my hands. So, for the next few days or so, I’ll be putting my homework on my blog, which may or may not be of any interest to you.

My Homework for Your Reading Pleasure

This is a paper I wrote for my Shakespeare class about a speech by Katherine, a character in Shake­speare’s Taming of the Shrew. This will most likely not have any significance to you if you have not read Taming of the Shrew or do not remember the final speech by Katherine.

I think that Kate’s elaborate speech in Act 5, Scene 2 of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew was intended to be taken as ironic rather than serious. Due to the events leading up to the speech, it is very difficult to prove that Kate completely changed her mind about how wives should treat their husbands, and it is likely that she made that speech because of an external motivator.

Throughout the play, Petruchio continued to belittle Kate, making her follow his word and way if she wanted to have things her way. For example, when Petruchio and Kate are going to the wedding of Kate’s younger sister, Bianca, Petruchio declares, “Good Lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon!” (Act 4, Scene 5). When Kate corrects Petruchio by saying “The moon? The sun! It is not moonlight now,” Petruchio says, “It shall be moon, or star, or what I list, or e’er I journey to your father’s house,” implying that if Kate does not agree with and listen to him, he will not continue on in the journey and Kate will not get what she wants. In order to convince Petruchio to continue, Kate says, “Forward, I pray, since we have come so far, and be it moon, or sun, or what you please. An if you please to call it a rush candle, henceforth I vow it shall be so for me.” This shows that Kate might not necessarily be agreeing with Petruchio because she thinks his word is right, but because she has an external motivator of getting what she wants, and having to agree with Petruchio just happens to be an obstacle in her path.

Shortly before entering Bianca’s wedding ceremony, Petruchio instructs Kate to kiss him. Again, this is another instance of when Kate does what Petruchio wishes because that is the only way to get what she wants. Petruchio says, “First kiss me, Kate, and we will” (Act 5, Scene 1). Kate clearly does not want to do it freely because she replies, “What, in the midst of the street? … God forbid, but ashamed to kiss.” To this, Petruchio replies, “Why, then let’s home again. Come, sirrah, let’s away,” saying that they will go home because Kate did not obey Petruchio. In order to solve this predicament, Kate goes ahead and kisses Petruchio to get what she wants (participating in the ceremony), not because she thinks she must serve her husband.

Kate’s speech about having to serve husbands well was not much later than when she was forced to kiss Petruchio in order to stay at the wedding. One may say that Kate the shrew was fully tamed at that point, but it is high unlikely that her mind completely changed during the short amount of time that she was in the ceremony. A change of personality in that nature would take a longer period of time and occur gradually; it would not show a drastic jump from Kate’s hesitating to kiss Petruchio to Kate’s elaborate declaration of loyalty to Petruchio.

Instead, it is more likely that she had the same motivation to make the speech as she did to follow through with the other acts (agreeing that the sun is the moon and kissing Petruchio) – to make sure she gets what she wants. The only difference in the speech was that there was no obvious immediate reward to making the speech. However, by making it seem like Kate is loyal and serving to Petruchio, she will make an impression on Petruchio such that he will be more willing to let her do what she wants in the future.

My summer semester of college is slowly coming to a close, and I’m busy studying for my final exams, putting together my final presentation for psychology, and writing extra credit papers to make sure I get an A in all of my classes. As a result, I’ll be slightly busier and more occupied than normal, so a handful of the blog posts for the next week or so will be me slacking and just putting up some of my homework assignments that may or may not be of interest to the public.

My Homework for Your Reading Pleasure

I wrote this paper for extra credit for my Shakespeare class. The prompt was to read the first chapter of Fool by Christopher Moore, which is based off of Shakespeare’s King Lear, then write about if we want to continue reading the remainder of the book.

After reading the first chapter of Fool by Christopher Moore, I do not want to read the remainder of the book.

Before the start of the book, there is a warning that states that Fool is going to be a crude book with unsophisticated humor: “Herein you will find gratuitous shagging, murder, spanking, maiming, treason, and heretofore unexplored heights of vulgarity and profanity, as well as non-traditional grammar, split infinitives, and the odd wank.” I usually don’t find obscene or foul humor funny, and see the act of excessive degrading of a character for humor as annoying more than funny. The fact that it was done intentionally in an attempt to try and make the book more enjoyable makes it worse in my opinion. As for the intentional misuse of grammar, I find using proper and precise grammar and syntax as an important component of a good piece of writing, and purposely misusing language does not at all seem like something that would make me want to read a story more than if it were written correctly.

Before I read the story, I was aware that this was a variation of Shakespeare’s King Lear, so I was expecting some of the characters who were introduced. However, even though I was familiar with the characters, the relationships among them and their relationships with the new characters (like the raven, Pocket the fool, Bubble the cook, and other ridiculously named characters) were unclear. On the other hand, it seems like if someone had not read Shakespeare’s King Lear before reading Fool, they would be completely confused at the mass entry of various characters without proper introduction or background information. For example, a random ghost makes an appearance at the end of the chapter without reason, but the fool acts as if he knows exactly what is going on.

Finally, a majority of the first chapter seems to be an argument between the fool and the cook, and it is difficult to follow what exactly they are arguing about. If the rest of the book were to continue in that manner, I don’t think I would be able to follow the plot very well.