Tag: Play

School Physical Education Programs Could Play an Important Role in Reducing Kids’ Depression, New Research Suggests

Teen girls playing volleyball

Because physical activity is associated with a significant reduction in depression symptoms, physical education programs in primary and secondary schools can play a key role in improving the mental health of children and adolescents.

Pills

Online health guidance from Harvard Medical School calls exercise “an all-natural treatment to fight depression” and says antidepressants aren’t the only solution.

Couple walking dogs

Research found that for adults, even relatively small doses of physical activity are associated with substantially lower risks of depression.

Strong evidence points to physical activity as effective treatment for depression – the challenge is getting people to do it.

The evidence that physical activity is effective medicine for mental health is robust; now we need to find ways to get people to take it.”

— Eduardo E. Bustamante, PhD, University of Illinois Chicago

WASHINGTON, DC, US, January 5, 2023 /EINPresswire.com/ — A rigorous, new study has confirmed a link between physical activity and significantly reduced depression symptoms in children and adolescents, with a greater benefit derived by teenagers and by those more severely depressed. A separate study last year found a similar association between exercise and depressed adults.

Citing the fact that current clinical guidelines for treatment of depression in children and teens call for psychotherapy and psychiatric drugs, which have proven unworkable for many young patients, researchers from Hong Kong and the U.S. addressed what they termed “an urgent need to explore novel treatment approaches that can be safely, feasibly, and widely implemented in the daily routine of children and adolescents with depression.”

They conducted a systemic review and meta-analysis of a wider range of studies than any previous study on the association between physical activity and depression in children and adolescents. They found that getting depressed kids to exercise more – three activity sessions a week for up to 12 weeks – was associated with a significant reduction in depression symptoms compared to those in control groups who did not receive the physical activity interventions. [1]

The study findings, published in JAMA Pediatrics, also indicate that increased physical activity has greater benefits for more severely depressed children and adolescents and for depressed teens aged 13 years or older, an age range in which physical activity levels have been found to decrease and depressive symptoms increase.

“The available evidence supports physical activity interventions as an alternative or adjunctive approach to alleviate depressive symptoms in children and adolescents, substantiating the beneficial influence of physical activity on the mental health of pediatric populations,” wrote lead author Francesco Recchia, MSc, of the School of Public Health at the University of Hong Kong.

Most of the studies reviewed by the researchers involved increasing students’ participation in physical activities at school, ranging from simple aerobic exercises, such as running and jumping, to playing sports. The researchers suggested that schools could look to their physical education programs as a means to improve students’ mental health.

“The findings of this systematic review and meta-analysis strengthen the role of physical activity for depressive symptom management and highlight the potential of structured physical education programs in primary and secondary schools for improving the mental health of children and adolescents,” the researchers wrote. They called for further investigation of the frequency, duration, and supervision of physical activity associated with this improvement.

A companion editorial in JAMA Pediatrics urged research to find how to make physical activities more widely available and engage more children and teens in them, which is key to getting widespread public health benefits. “The evidence that physical activity is effective medicine for mental health is robust; now we need to find ways to get people to take it,” wrote Eduardo E. Bustamante, PhD, of the Department of Kinesiology and Nutrition at the University of Illinois Chicago. [2]

Other research findings have found similar links between exercise and depression in adults. A 2021 systematic review and meta-analysis, published in JAMA Psychiatry, found that adults who are physically active have a lower risk of depression than those who do not exercise at all and that “relatively small doses of physical activity were associated with substantially lower risks of depression.” [3]

Similar results were found when researchers analyzed data from 1.2 million American adults who took the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Behavioral Risk Factors Surveillance System survey in 2011, 2013, and 2015. The 2018 study, published in The Lancet Psychiatry, found that all types of exercise – even walking – for an average duration of 45 minutes three times a week were “significantly and meaningfully” associated with fewer days of poor self-reported mental health by survey participants as compared to those who did not exercise. [4]

Online health guidance from Harvard Medical School calls exercise “an all-natural treatment to fight depression.” “Pills aren’t the only solution. Research shows that exercise is also an effective treatment,” according to the Harvard Health Publishing website. [5]

Currently, 45 million Americans are prescribed antidepressant drugs, whose side effects include sleep problems, emotional dulling, sexual dysfunction, anxiety, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, loss of judgment, and the impulsiveness and mania that can lead to violence and suicidal thoughts and actions.

Worse still, those who want to stop taking antidepressants risk serious withdrawal symptoms that can persist for a year or more. [6]

The longer antidepressants are taken and the higher the dose, the more severe and prolonged the withdrawal symptoms may be, causing an untold number of users to give up trying and instead remain on a drug they no longer want.

Even the rationale for prescribing antidepressants – to correct a supposed chemical imbalance in the brain – has been questioned by researchers who conducted a comprehensive review, which for the first time integrated all relevant research, to evaluate whether scientific evidence supported the theory that a low level of the brain chemical serotonin caused depression.

“The serotonin theory of depression has been one of the most influential and extensively researched biological theories of the origins of depression,” wrote lead author Joanna Moncrief in Molecular Psychiatry in July. “Our study shows that this view is not supported by scientific evidence. It also calls into question the basis for the use of antidepressants.” [7]

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) continues to raise public awareness of the risks of serious side effects and withdrawal symptoms from antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs, so that consumers and their physicians can make fully informed decisions about starting or stopping the drugs. CCHR supports safe and science-based non-drug approaches to mental health.

CCHR also recommends a complete physical examination with lab tests, nutritional and allergy screenings, and a review of all current medications to identify any physical causes of depression or other unwanted mental and emotional symptoms, which might otherwise be misdiagnosed and incorrectly treated as a psychiatric disorder.

WARNING: Anyone wishing to discontinue or change the dose of an antidepressant or other psychiatric drug is cautioned to do so only under the supervision of a physician because of potentially dangerous withdrawal symptoms.

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights was co-founded in 1969 by members of the Church of Scientology and the late psychiatrist and humanitarian Thomas Szasz, M.D., recognized by many academics as modern psychiatry’s most authoritative critic, to eradicate abuses and restore human rights and dignity to the field of mental health. CCHR has been instrumental in obtaining 228 laws against psychiatric abuses and violations of human rights worldwide.

The CCHR National Affairs Office in Washington, DC, has advocated for mental health rights and protections at the state and federal level. The CCHR traveling exhibit, which has toured 441 major cities worldwide and educated over 800,000 people on the history to the present day of abusive and racist psychiatric practices, has been displayed at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Annual Legislative Conference in Washington, DC, and at other locations.

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36595284/

[2] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2799813

[3] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2790780

[4] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30099000/

[5] https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/exercise-is-an-all-natural-treatment-to-fight-depression

[6] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29758951/

[7] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0.pdf

###

Anne Goedeke
Citizens Commission on Human Rights, National Affairs Office
+1 202-349-9267
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Visually impaired Dallas students get chance to play with adapted physical education

“One, two.” Stomp, stomp. “Three, four.” Stomp, stomp.

Stephanie Perez, 11, ways on and off an orange rectangular block to the count, each and every time lifting her fleece-lined boots a small bigger and stomping a bit harder.

“One, two,” a Dallas ISD actual physical instruction trainer phone calls out.

Stephanie, a sixth grader, stomps more challenging as one more PE instructor, Elizabeth Chittim, hovers close by in the gymnasium at Beckley-Saner Recreation Center in Dallas.

A team of educators — some who instruct visually-impaired learners and many others who are element of the district’s deaf and challenging-of-hearing tutorial staff — cheer Stephanie on.

Stephanie has very little sight and wears listening to aids, tucked powering her dark hair.

Although she procedures the work out, students with identical vision problems swing softball bats, kick extra-massive soccer balls, shoot basketballs or roll balls among by themselves, sitting on the wooden floor in a star-formed formation.

Lisa Gray (left), a teacher of the visually impaired at Dallas ISD, guides Stephanie Perez,...
Lisa Grey (left), a trainer of the visually impaired at Dallas ISD, guides Stephanie Perez, 11, by a throwing workout as part of an adapted PE course for pupils with visual impairments at the Beckley-Saner Recreation Middle in Dallas on Friday, Dec. 9, 2022.(Liesbeth Powers / Employees Photographer)

The bodily education and learning academics are aspect of the district’s adapted actual physical schooling crew that is effective with the just about 10{af0afab2a7197b4b77fcd3bf971aba285b2cb7aa14e17a071e3a1bf5ccadd6db} of Dallas ISD’s 153,000-plus pupils who have disabilities or other unique requirements and in some cases overlook out on normal PE encounters.

This is the next time the center has hosted this group of middle and high faculty college students with visual impairments for a distinctive celebration.

“We’re seeking to give them far more exposure and educate them the basic tactics of different athletics and actual physical things to do so they can take part like anyone else,” mentioned Kelli Hackney, the district’s direct adapted actual physical instruction trainer.

Nevertheless many of these college students get federally-mandated services to fulfill their educational needs, not every single campus is equipped to offer satisfying bodily training, or as Hackney likes to say “time to perform.”

PE instructors normally could have 50 or 60 children in a class and there could be only a single visually-impaired college student.

So a great deal of educating bodily things to do and competencies is visible, Hackney claimed, mimicking standing with her legs straight and then unfold out in a triangular-condition with out giving instructions.

Right here, adapted PE teachers know they will have to uncover new ways.

Angel Bracken (center), 18, stomps on a ball launcher during an adapted PE class for Dallas...
Angel Bracken (heart), 18, stomps on a ball launcher throughout an tailored PE class for Dallas ISD students with visual impairments at the Beckley-Saner Recreation Middle in Dallas on Friday, Dec. 9, 2022.(Liesbeth Powers / Staff members Photographer)

The loud emphasis on stomping, and the distinctive seems Stephanie’s boots make on the rubber block compared to the hardwood flooring, is a person of individuals techniques.

When students sit on 4-wheeled carts and race around cones, instructors jingle bells so they know which path to go.

Angel Brackens, 18, has lower vision, but it hasn’t stopped her from participating in PE class and even staff sports at her substantial university. Last year, she played on the girls’ basketball and volleyball teams.

When requested what activity she relished the most or did the finest at, Brackens claimed, “I knew I’d be excellent at just about anything.”

Kathy Sutton, a eyesight trainer who works in quite a few educational facilities, has low eyesight herself.

Her solution may be a minimal distinctive than that of instructors who have not faced the exact same problems. She will get it, she said.

“I’m more about independence. I inquire them, ‘Do you want assist with that?’ And if they say no, I depart them to it,” Sutton said.

There are about 180 visually-impaired college students across the district, said Katie Granados, guide instructor of students with visual impairments. Some are totally blind whereas other folks might have distinctive eyeglasses or even prosthetic eyes.

At occasions like this, they are a college student amid friends.

Lee Lee Robinson (right), an adapted PE teacher at Dallas ISD, claps to help guide visually...
Lee Lee Robinson (suitable), an adapted PE trainer at Dallas ISD, claps to aid guide visually impaired pupils via a throwing workout during an tailored PE course at the Beckley-Saner Recreation Heart in Dallas on Friday, Dec. 9, 2022.(Liesbeth Powers / Employees Photographer)

Different district groups collaborate to offer special events or immersive experiences like this unique PE event. In the past, Dallas ISD has held a summer months school program for visually-impaired learners.

Federal disability regulation mandates learners receive an equitable schooling and demands districts to present a particular selection of provider hrs to each pupil.

These rules aren’t on the minds of lots of of the instructors currently. They’ve labored with a lot of of the college students for several years.

They sign up for relay race teams and dart close to retaining balloons from touching the ground. They just take fingers and enable guidebook the pupils, explaining how to locate the flooring or a ball with other senses relatively than sight.

They clap and cheer, all the though praising their students.

Stephanie, beaming, flips her short hair again and raises her arms. Even though she does not say nearly anything, in between her smile and exhilaration, it’s apparent to those people viewing that she’s dancing in delight.

The DMN Schooling Lab deepens the coverage and discussion about urgent instruction challenges significant to the potential of North Texas.

The DMN Training Lab is a group-funded journalism initiative, with help from The Beck Group, Bobby and Lottye Lyle, Communities Basis of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Garrett and Cecilia Boone, The Meadows Foundation, The Murrell Foundation, Methods Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University, Sydney Smith Hicks, Todd A. Williams Loved ones Foundation and the College of Texas at Dallas. The Dallas Early morning News retains whole editorial command of the Training Lab’s journalism.

The Vital, Hidden Role That Learning Management Systems Play In The Education Market

Studying Administration Units (LMS) are the dashboards or working units of technological know-how-enabled school rooms and educational institutions. Designed to centralize, scale and measure the schooling ecosystem, they’ve turn into ubiquitous and indispensable.

University attendance, self-discipline, assignments – both of those giving and receiving – exams, examine components, they all go toss and exist in an LMS. And at each individual level of instruction from kindergarten to graduate school. As this sort of, LMS serve hundreds of thousands and thousands of pupils and are a multi-billion dollar marketplace all by by themselves.

A several of the big gamers are Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard, and Schoology. Even Google is in the match.

But on top of their immediate missions, LMS are also participating in an outsized, make-or-break role in the wider instruction technologies industry, primarily among youthful firms and startups. Progressively and fairly indispensably, LMS vendors are gatekeepers, vetting authorities and substantial distributors of schooling goods and solutions built by other individuals.

This new and developed LMS purpose is so large that, if you’re a start off-up in the instruction house, getting a offer to imbed your device in one particular or extra LMS can be the variation involving making it or not.

The gatekeeper position that LMS not occupy is by no usually means negative. To the opposite, it has quite a few real advantages. For the LMS, including integrated instruments makes their techniques extra potent, far more crucial, enabling them to present additional services to their schools, teachers and college students. For pupils and lecturers, they get far more and superior services, all in one spot, seamless access and integration. For education and learning corporations, they can reach tens of millions of pupils at as soon as, by one particular deal as a substitute of making an attempt to acquire over teachers or schools or districts a single at a time.

TJ Hoffman, the Chief Working Officer at Sibme, a experienced mastering application resolution for educators, claimed his firm struck integration deals with LMS corporations Canvas and Schoology and “plans to combine with other LMS in the long run.” And whilst he claimed heading in with an LMS was not a “deal-breaker,” he also explained its benefits.

Getting with an LMS, Hoffman said, “is a fantastic reduction in friction for end users and has boosted engagement. For illustration, we do the job with a significant college in Texas and, at the time their users began engaging with Sibme as a result of our indigenous Canvas integration, engagement went up 70{af0afab2a7197b4b77fcd3bf971aba285b2cb7aa14e17a071e3a1bf5ccadd6db}.”

He also cited a spin-off profit – an improve in customers engaging with Sibme specifically – soon after they encountered the remedy in the LMS. A form of passage of vetting outcome. Hoffman reported, “Showing that, the moment users are far more comfortable applying Sibme as a result of the integration, their motivation to engage with the application in our native apps also goes up.”

ReadSpeaker, a major textual content-to-speech finding out software, announced an integration deal with LMS Moodle in September and experienced identical points to say about the great importance of LMS preparations.

“LMS businesses are diligent and demanding.” stated Roy Lindemann, CMO of ReadSpeaker. “So, currently being built-in with 1 or extra LMS providers not only increases your access and scale, it is also a marketplace stamp of becoming most effective in class in instruction.”

And while LMS as marketplace-maker is a boon for the firms that get in, it suggests new organizations or lesser enterprises may possibly have to make selections because signing on with LMS isn’t quick. It demands a company to spend means in product style and features. As a outcome, some firms only pick not to test, even however they see the gains.

Elliott Goodman, co-founder of Tiro, which delivers teachers thorough, actionable analytics based mostly on assessments they develop, said his enterprise had to make a decision whether or not to chase an LMS.

“We had to determine whether we would prioritize LMS integration in our merchandise roadmap. We observed the main gains to integrating with an LMS like Schoology becoming twofold: gradebook reporting and discoverability,” Goodman reported. “However, we are early in Tiro’s development and we eventually decided that it would be far better to devote engineering hrs to building out its attributes,” he claimed, incorporating that, provided the range of significant LMS units, his staff would have to decide on one particular and prioritize operating with it and within just it.

The secondary but major position that LMS programs now participate in in education engineering is not shed on the LMS suppliers themselves both.

“At Moodle, we choose our partnerships quite critically. We have an understanding of that everything we sponsor and incorporate as portion of the Moodle product or service ecosystem has a direct and significant effects on the mastering encounters of hundreds of thousands of learners all over the world. We do not halt at examining just the tech, we also concentration on comprehending the pedagogical relevance of the featuring, as nicely as the mother nature of the corporation that offers it to test if their values align with people we champion at Moodle.” claimed Marie Achour, International Head of Product at Moodle.

“When we partnered with ReadSpeaker, as an case in point, we went by means of a complete evaluation method and made the decision that the value they supplied would improve and compliment the training and discovering assets provided by Moodle and that collectively, we could offer you richer instruments for educators and more effective studying prospects for their college students,” Achour claimed.

The capability for LMS to tremendous-demand training startups is not a development – it’s a new ordinary and a dynamic of the current market that feels deeply important. What method an training firm options for LMS integration should to be a single of the most important thoughts investors and founders inquire, if they never now.