General Cognitive Abilities and Psychosocial Development in Children and Adolescents Having a Co-Twin with Down Syndrome.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the general cognitive and psychosocial development in children and adolescents having a co-twin with Down syndrome. STUDY DESIGN: A case control study with an individually matched control group was conducted. Participants included families with twins discordant for Down syndrome as well as with typically developing twins. The group of unaffected co-twins aged 4-16 years was compared with a control group of typically developing twins in terms of general cognitive abilities, behavioral problems, and prosocial behavior. The age and sex and the sex composition of the twins were individually matched. The Sijnders-Oomen nonverbal intelligence test was applied to assess children's IQ, and parents completed the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire. RESULTS: The unaffected co-twins did not differ from typically developing twins with respect to their IQ. Concerning the psychosocial development, significantly heightened values in unaffected co-twins twins were only obtained for the conduct problems scale (P = .01; r = 0.45), neither for the total difficulties score nor for the other behavioral problem scales significant differences were found. CONCLUSIONS: The general cognitive development of the unaffected co-twin of children with Down syndrome is not affected by the presence of their Down syndrome twin. Unaffected co-twins showed increased conduct problems, which is most pronounced in the younger children.

[Cigarette smoking and immunity disorder]. / Palenie papierosów a zaburzenia odpornosci.

Cigarette smoking addiction is one of the cardinal factors the diseases of respiratory system, cardio-vascular system and neoplasms. A part of them is the effect of immunosupression. It includes both morphologic changes (atrophia of lymphoid tissue) and cell functional disorder of the immune system. Cell-mediated response Th1-type, which is responsible for pathogens invasion, is depleted, whereas Th2-type is increased and has its effect on higher frequency of allergic diseases. Susceptibility to neoplasmatic changes is also augmented.

[Asthma bronchial among children and youth exposed to tobacco smoke]. / Astma oskrzelowa u dzieci i mlodziezy a narazenie na dym tytoniowy.

Purpose of this work was to judge progress of diagnosed bronchial asthma among children and youth that are exposed on tobacco smoke in aspect of number of exacerbation of disease, therapy (doses of corticosteroids) and number of hospitalizations. There were two groups of patients with bronchial asthma under examination, first one were children and youth that are exposed on tobacco smoke, and the other group of children and youth that are not exposed on tobacco smoke. We discovered statistically significant difference in number of exacerbation of disease among those two groups, also bigger therapeutic and prophylactic doses of inhaled steroids during treatment, and much more often hospitalizations among children and youth that are exposed on tobacco smoke.

[Vasovagal syncope--diagnostic difficulties in adolescents]. / Omdlenia wazowagalne--trudnosci diagnostyczne u mlodziezy.

Consciousness disturbances in adolescents may be caused by different reasons. Among them, cardiologic and neurological backgrounds should be considered. The most important diagnostic tests the vasovagal syncopes are: tilt-table test, brain oxygenation measurement, routine and extended elektroencephalography. Performing of these examinations simultaneously may help in determining cause of symptoms. Our patient serves us as an example.

[Attitude of high school youth among tobacco smoking habit. Why they do? Why they do not?]. / Postawa mlodziezy licealnej wobec nalogu palenia tytoniu. Dlaczego tak? Dlaczego nie?

Issue of smoking is a big problem among youth. In connection with this statement, very helpful is knowledge about motivation and attitude toward tobacco smoking habit. This is the issue of our research, which we carried out among 289 high school students. In questionnaire we tried to reveal flounce smokers in family and nearest environment. Obtained results showed that almost 20% of respondents are active smokers, and half of them are smoking longer than two years. We also learned that 4% of non-smokers obey parents' prohibition of smoking and only 2% of smokers are taking into account parents opinion.