Patrick C. Friman

Case Study: Exposure and Response Prevention for an Adolescent With Tourette's Syndrome and OCD

Using recently refined diagnostic criteria, the authors hypothesized that the frequent touching of others by a 16-year-old male adolescent with Tourettes syndrome was a compulsion and not a tic. Consistent with the studys hypothesis, the authors applied exposure and response prevention, a procedure empirically supported for treatment of compulsions but not for tics, to the touching. Results showed a significant decrease in touching attempts, overt anxiety, and subjective anxiety across time.

Years of potential life lost: Evaluating premature cancer death in men

Cancer is one of the most serious health concerns facing the nation. Health care policy makers who determine cancer research and treatment priorities must analyze death rates as an indicator of public health priorities. Two additional indexes that account for premature death include years of potential life lost (YPLL) and potential years of life lost per death (YPLL/D). Data for ten leading causes of cancer death in men from 1974–1983 were analyzed and the YPLL and YPLL/D corresponding to these cancers was calculated. Each cancer was then ranked from most to least significant according to each index. The analyses show that using YPLL and YPLL/D to evaluate cancer death in men results in rankings that differ from those obtained when using death rates alone. The premature death indexes, when used in combination with traditional mortality indexes, would enhance the data base used by funding agencies who select and evaluate cancer treatment and prevention programs.

Varied citrus treatment of ruminant gagging in a teenager with Batten's disease

Chronic ruminant gagging was substantially reduced in a severely retarded 13-year-old girl with Battens disease through the use of contingent citrus juice in an ABAB design. Previous literature suggests that citrus juice may not be effective for treatment of rumination in older and/or handicapped children due to habituation. In this study, habituation may have been prevented by alternating lime juice and lemon juice when ruminative gagging reached a predetermined rate. The lemon/lime variation offers an effective, practical, and acceptable alternative to other response suppression procedures for rumination.