There are literally thousands of journals published around the world that relate to the disability community. It is virtually impossible to capture even a fraction of them. HELEN receives "stacks" of journals and selectively earmarks what we feel are "must read" articles of interest for our readers. It's a HELEN perk.
Why is autism increasing? Scientists are converging on an unglamorous answer
Eric W. Dolan
PsyPost | October 16, 2026
The article examines the dramatic increase in autism diagnoses over recent decades and explores whether this reflects a true rise in autism or changes in diagnostic practices, awareness, and access to services.
Research shows substantial increases in recorded diagnoses in the United States, Europe, and Australia. However, comparisons across studies are complicated by differences in screening methods, diagnostic criteria, healthcare systems, and population characteristics. Researchers suggest that broader diagnostic definitions, increased awareness, and the identification of previously overlooked groups—including women and adults—have contributed significantly to the rise.
A South Korean study that screened children using consistent methods over 12 years found that autism prevalence remained relatively stable at approximately 2–3 percent, despite more children receiving diagnoses over time. This suggests that improved detection may explain part of the increase in recorded cases.
The article also discusses concerns about diagnostic substitution, changing perceptions of autism, and the possibility of overdiagnosis, particularly among adults whose symptoms may overlap with other mental health conditions. At the same time, it acknowledges that historically underdiagnosed populations deserve appropriate recognition and support.
The authors cited in the article recommend comprehensive autism assessments that include developmental histories, behavioral observations, neuropsychological evaluations, sensory assessments, and consideration of alternative diagnoses.
Overall, the article concludes that rising autism diagnoses do not necessarily mean autism itself is becoming more common. Changes in recognition, diagnostic practices, and access to services appear to explain at least part of the increase, although the available evidence does not definitively establish whether the underlying biological occurrence of autism is changing.
Women with cerebral palsy receive substantially less preventive gynecologic care
Lori Solomon
Healthday | September 18, 2026
Women with cerebral palsy (CP) receive substantially less preventive gynecologic care versus women without CP, according to a study published online Aug. 17 in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Michael J. Gouzoulis, M.D., from the Umass Chan Medical School in Worcester, and colleagues examined whether adult women with CP receive gynecologic preventive care. The analysis included 138,277 women with CP and 553,102 matched women without CP identified from the PearlDiver national insurance database (2010 to 2022).
The researchers found a substantially lower incidence of preventive care for women with CP for all preventive screenings. Across the study period, on average, 31.8 percent of women with cerebral palsy attended at least one routine gynecologic examination every five years versus 79.8 percent of women without CP. Across all years, 23.4 percent of women with CP had at least one Pap test every five years versus 54.1 percent of women without CP. Among women aged 40 years and older, on average, 44.9 percent of women with CP had at least one mammogram every five years versus 72.3 percent of women without CP. Women with CP had significantly lower odds of undergoing Pap tests (odds ratio [OR], 0.26), mammograms (OR, 0.39), and gynecologic examinations (OR, 0.15).
“As our young patients with cerebral palsy successfully transition into adulthood, we have a responsibility to look closely at the hurdles they face in the health care system,” principal author David Frumberg, M.D., from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, said in a statement. “These data show that a major vulnerable population is missing out on potentially life-saving, preventative screenings, and we have to understand why.”
Oral health and systemic health outcomes: A call for interdisciplinary action
Moritz Kebschull, Ryan T. Demmer, Nigel Pitts, Huda Yusuf, Gitana Rederiene, Nikolaos Donos, Wim Teughels, Raman Bedi, Orsolya Nemeth, Mia Rakic, Stéphanie Tubert-Jeannin, Raimondo Ascione, Francesco D'Aiuto, James Deschner, Thomas Dietrich, Mili Doshi, Julian Fisher, Ramón Juanatey, Phoebus Madianos, Katalin Nagy, Barry Quinn, Saulė Skinkytė, Lina Stangvaltaite-Mouhat, Maria van den Muijsenbergh, Josep Vilaseca, Nicola West, Anton Sculean, Andreas Stavropoulos, Kenneth Eaton, Joint EFP/EADPH Working Group
Wiley | August 31, 2026
Abstract
Objectives
To make the case, from periodontology and dental public health, for interdisciplinary action on oral and systemic health, and to set out recommendations for practice, policy, education, and research.
Materials and Methods
A joint working group of the European Federation of Periodontology (EFP) and the European Association of Dental Public Health (EADPH), with public-health stakeholders and delegates from organized medicine (the World Heart Federation, WONCA Europe and the European Forum for Primary Care), synthesized the epidemiological, mechanistic, preventive and health-systems evidence, and developed consensus recommendations.
Results
Oral diseases affect around 3.5 billion people and share modifiable risk factors (free sugars, tobacco, and alcohol) and social and commercial determinants with the major non-communicable diseases (NCDs); inadequate oral hygiene is an additional oral-specific factor. This argues for integrating oral health into general health through a common risk factor approach rather than disease silos. Periodontitis has the strongest evidence for systemic interactions and, unusually among oral diseases, its treatment improves glycemic control in diabetes and inflammatory or vascular surrogates, though evidence for major clinical events remains limited; other links rest largely on shared risk factors and mechanisms (an asymmetry of evidence, not of public-health importance). Prevention and integrated care remain under-implemented.
Conclusions
Oral health must be recognized as integral to general health and embedded within NCD strategies and universal health coverage through interprofessional, intersectoral action that also tackles the social and commercial determinants and reduces inequalities.
Clinical Relevance
Equipping all health and social-care professionals to promote oral self-care, screen and refer, and prioritize periodontal prevention and treatment, can improve both oral and systemic outcomes.
73 days?! Examining the rate at which medical knowledge doubles and its implications
Kevin W. Eva
ASME | September 22, 2026
Summary: Is Medical Knowledge Really Doubling Every 73 Days?
The article challenges the widely repeated claim that medical knowledge doubles every 73 days, arguing that this estimate lacks a reliable scientific foundation. Originally published in a 2011 paper, the claim has been frequently cited to justify major changes in medical education, including reducing memorization and placing greater emphasis on technology and artificial intelligence.
Using publication data from PubMed, the author found that medical literature generally grows at an annual rate of approximately 5% to 10%. For example, publications containing the term “medical” increased at an average rate of 7%, equivalent to a doubling time of approximately 10 years—not 73 days. Although medical information is expanding rapidly, the author emphasizes that publication volume is not the same as meaningful knowledge or clinical wisdom.
The article cautions against allowing exaggerated claims to drive education policy. Overreliance on technology and information retrieval could weaken foundational knowledge, critical thinking, clinical reasoning, and the ability to evaluate evidence. Artificial intelligence can support healthcare professionals, but it cannot replace the understanding needed to apply information appropriately.
The author concludes that medical education must continue evolving to incorporate new technologies while maintaining strong foundational knowledge, ethical responsibility, lifelong learning, and professional development. Rather than responding with panic-driven reforms, educators should pursue thoughtful, evidence-based improvements that prepare healthcare professionals to provide effective, compassionate, and socially responsible care.
Learning to ‘Design for All’: Medical students auditing the inclusiveness of health care settings for people with disabilities
Giusy D’Alterio, Giovanni Emanuele Ricciardi, Stephany Rengifo, Arjun Sarabhai Verma, Silvia Mangili, Andrea Rebecchi, Stefano Capolongo, Carlo Signorelli, Cristina Renzi
ASME | September 17, 2026
1 WHAT PROBLEMS WERE ADDRESSED?
People with disabilities encounter significant barriers for accessing screening and timely cancer diagnosis, with worse health outcomes. Despite increasing attention to equity in cancer care, medical curricula often lack specific training on recognizing and addressing organizational, physical, sensory and communication barriers within health care settings.
As a result, future physicians may underestimate how complex hospital routes, inadequate signage and communication and non-inclusive clinical areas restrict access to care and perpetuate inequities.
2 WHAT WAS TRIED?
To provide medical students with the knowledge and skills for evaluating the inclusiveness of screening and diagnostic centers, we designed an elective course, using the hospital environment as a learning laboratory. Under the supervision of a senior public health physician specialized in cancer pathways, the 20-hour curriculum integrated theoretical classes with two practical field-based activities. Theoretical classes covered the social and human-rights models of disability, inequities in cancer screening participation, principles of universal design and communication with patients with sensory or cognitive impairments. First, students evaluated how physical, sensory, cognitive and social barriers may affect hospital accessibility, following the ‘Design for All’ approach developed by the Design and Health Lab at the Politecnico University of Milan, a World Health Organization Centre for Design & Health. ‘Design for All’ centers the environment rather than the individual: Spaces and services are designed to be usable by the widest possible range of people without adaptation or specialized solutions. Students documented patient journeys, producing photographic evidence, spatial mapping and observational notes. Second, employing a specifically developed anonymous patient survey, including 30 pre-coded questions, students collected experiences from 465 hospital out-patients (122 with and 343 without disabilities).
3 WHAT LESSONS WERE LEARNED?
Active mapping of patient journeys appeared to shift how students framed disability: In post-activity debriefings, students reported that they had come to see access problems as arising from environmental and organizational features rather than from patients' impairments, moving towards the socio-environmental model set out in the UN definition. The survey findings provided insights into specific barriers faced by patients with disabilities when accessing health care, further increasing the students' awareness of the importance of inclusive care. Direct hospital-based engagement and experiential learning fostered empathy, practical problem-solving and critical analysis skills. Furthermore, integrating architectural audit tools allowed students to read architectural layouts, apply accessibility audit checklists and translate observed barriers into concrete design and organizational recommendations and highlighted how multidisciplinary approaches are necessary for helping us to move towards genuine inclusivity. Not everything worked equally well: Scheduling the field visits around clinical activity and administering the patient survey in busy waiting areas both proved harder than anticipated and will be addressed in the next iteration. We also cannot tell from a single elective whether these shifts persist, and follow-up assessment is planned. Although developed around cancer screening pathways, the audit skills are transferable to other clinical settings, and the format is most easily accommodated in undergraduate-entry medical programmed.
Medical Sleuth
Tom Shachtman
Smithsonian Magazine | February 2006
In December 1999, Old Order Amish parents Elizabeth and Samuel Glick faced a nightmare when their 4-month-old daughter, Sara Lynn, died at a Pennsylvania hospital. Because the infant exhibited retinal hemorrhaging, extensive bruising, and brain bleeding, doctors and authorities falsely suspected child abuse. The coroner ruled the death a homicide, and the county immediately seized the Glicks’ seven other sons, separating them into non-Amish foster homes.
Desperate to exonerate themselves and retrieve their children, the Glicks contacted Dr. D. Holmes Morton, director of the Clinic for Special Children and the world's leading authority on genetic diseases within the inbred Amish and Mennonite communities.
Dr. Morton's background prepared him uniquely for this crisis:
In 1988, he debunked a “cerebral palsy” diagnosis in an Amish boy, identifying it instead as glutaric aciduria type 1 (GA-1)—a rare metabolic disorder that lays dormant until a common respiratory infection triggers a toxic chemical buildup, causing permanent paralysis.
Morton successfully pioneered a preventative treatment protocol for GA-1 (using specialized diets, IV fluids, and glucose during illnesses) to protect vulnerable children from brain damage, bringing immense relief to the Amish community.
Investigating Sara Lynn’s death, Dr. Morton discovered crucial clues: she was born at home and did not receive a standard newborn vitamin K shot (essential for blood clotting), and her mother noted she compulsively scratched her face—a symptom of liver dysfunction. Morton concluded that Sara Lynn died not from abuse, but from a fatal combination of a vitamin K deficiency and a genetic bile-salt transporter disorder common in her extended family. To prove this to the state and reunite the family, Morton enlisted a Philadelphia lawyer to take on the case pro bono.
The Thirty Percent
Nitin Gogtay, M.D.
Sensible Medicine | September 19, 2026
Based on a landmark, two-decade study of childhood-onset schizophrenia at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the author reveals a stark system flaw: nearly 30% of children admitted with a schizophrenia diagnosis were misdiagnosed. These children, who arrived heavily medicated with complex drug cocktails, did not have schizophrenia. Instead, after intensive observation, their symptoms were found to stem from severe anxiety, depression, trauma, OCD, or behavioral issues.
The author emphasizes that these misdiagnoses were not a failure of clinical skill, but a systemic failure driven by a lack of time. In standard practice, psychiatrists face immense time and insurance constraints, often having only fifteen-minute outpatient visits or brief four-day emergency hospitalizations. Once a powerful diagnostic label is applied and antipsychotics are started, a confirmation bias sets in: medication side effects (like sedation) are misread as disease symptoms, hardening the hypothesis into absolute fact.
Unlike other medical specialties that rely on objective anchors like biopsies or scans, psychiatry relies entirely on clinical judgment. Therefore, time is the closest thing psychiatry has to a confirmatory test. The author advocates for “watchful waiting,” regular medication reviews under supervision, and a clinical willingness to be “wrong out loud”—ensuring a diagnosis remains a flexible hypothesis rather than a lifelong sentence.