Schizophrenia WHAT IS IT? Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe, and disabling brain disease. Approximately 1 percent of the population develops schizophrenia during their lifetime—more than 2 million Americans suffer from the illness in a given...

Social Phobia Introduction Anxiety disorders are serious medical illnesses that affect approximately 19 million American adults. 1 These disorders fill people's lives with overwhelming anxiety and fear. Unlike the relatively mild, brief anxiety...

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder-OCD "I couldn't do anything without rituals. They invaded every aspect of my life. Counting really bogged me down. I would wash my hair three times as opposed to once because three was a good luck number and one...

Emotional and Behavioral Disorders Mental Health Is Important Mental health is how people think, feel, and act as they face life's situations. It affects how people handle stress, relate to one another, and make decisions. Mental health...

Comprehensive Overview of Hearing Impairments Definition The Education of the Handicapped Act (P.L. 94-142), includes "hearing impairment" and "deafness" as two of the categories under which children with disabilities may be eligible for...

Panic Disorder "It started 10 years ago, when I had just graduated from college and started a new job. I was sitting in a business seminar in a hotel and this thing came out of the blue. I felt like I was dying. "For me, a panic attack is...

Allergies An allergic reaction involves two features of the human immune response. One is the production of immunoglobulin E (IgE), a type of protein called an antibody that circulates through the blood. The other is the mast cell, a specific...

Comprehensive Overview of Other Health Impairments IDEA Definition of Other Health Impairments According to IDEA, an Other Health Impairment is defined as: Other health impairment means having limited strength, vitality or alertness, including...

Sinusitis You're coughing and sneezing and tired and achy. You think that you might be getting a cold. Later, when the medicines you've been taking to relieve the symptoms of the common cold are not working and you've now got a terrible...

Allergy Statistics A nationwide survey found that more than half (54.6%) of all U.S. citizens test positive to one or more allergens.6 In a recent survey, over 50% of homes had at least six detectable allergens present.23 Allergic diseases...