Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
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Since the first demonstrations that mindfulness-based therapies could have a positive influence on chronic pain patients, numerous studies have been conducted with healthy individuals in an attempt to understand meditative analgesia. This review focuses explicitly on experimental pain studies of meditation and attempts to draw preliminary conclusions based on the work completed in this new field over the past 6 years. Dividing meditative practices into the broad categories of focused attention (FA) and open monitoring (OM) techniques allowed several patterns to emerge. ⋯ The neural pattern underlying pain modulation during OM suggests meditators actively focus on the noxious stimulation while inhibiting other mental processes, consistent with descriptions of mindfulness. A preliminary model is presented for explaining the influence of mindfulness practice on pain. Finally, the potential analgesic effect of the currently unexplored technique of compassion meditation is discussed.
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Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. · Jan 2014
ReviewLeveraging paraprofessionals and family strengths to improve coverage and penetration of nutrition and early child development services.
Children need to be protected in intergenerational networks, with parents who have positive mood, resources to feed their children, and skills to promote early childhood development (ECD). Globally, more than 200 million children are raised annually without these resources. This article reviews the potential contributions of increasing coverage and penetration of services for these children, challenges to achieving penetration of services in high-risk families, opportunities created by bundling multiple services within one provider, potential leveraging of paraprofessionals to deliver care, and mobilizing communities to support children in households at high risk for negative outcomes. We end with a number of suggestions for how to ensure the equitable scale-up of integrated ECD and nutrition services that take into account current global priorities, as well as coverage and penetration of services.