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Deep Learning Technology: Sebastian Arnold, Betty van Aken, Paul Grundmann, Felix A. Gers and Alexander Löser. Learning Contextualized Document Representations for Healthcare Answer Retrieval. The Web Conference 2020 (WWW'20)
Funded by The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy; Grant: 01MD19013D, Smart-MD Project, Digital Technologies
Fear of surgery or other invasive medical procedure may be known as tomophobia. Fear of surgery is not a fear experienced often, but is still just as harmful as those that are more common. Since surgery is not a common occurrence, the fear is more based on inexperience or something that is out of the ordinary. This fear is one of those categorized under all fears of medical procedures that can be experienced by anyone, all ages, and have little need for actual psychological treatment, unless it is uncharacteristically causing the patient to react in a way that would be harmful to his or her health.
Exposure therapy has been proven as an effective treatment for people who have a fear of bees. It is recommended that people place themselves in a comfortable open environment, such as a park or garden, and gradually over a prolonged period of time move closer to the bees. This process should not be rushed, it may take many months spent watching bees before people feel comfortable in their presence.
Apiphobia is one of the zoophobias prevalent in young children and may prevent them from taking part in any outdoor activities. Older people control the natural fear of bees more easily. However, some adults face hardships of controlling the fear of bees.
A recommended way of overcoming child's fear of bees is training to face fears (a common approach for treating specific phobias). Programs vary.
In China, frigophobia is known as Wei Han Zheng (畏寒症). From the standpoint of traditional Chinese beliefs, the disorder is highly influenced by an imbalance of yin (the female element) and yang (the male element). Chinese traditional beliefs also states that working women are particularly susceptible to frigophobia, triggered by a combination of stress, menopause, pregnancy and other disorders such as anemia. During winter, these women are likely to experience coldness in extremities and back pains caused by the disorder.
It is believed that the disorder can be treated using a combination of diet in order to re-balance the yin and yang. A common dietary treatment include:
- Chicken soup
- Turnip juice mixed with ginger juice and honey, three times a day
- Red tea with ginger juice and sugar, two times a day
- Foods containing yeast (e.g. bread)
- Spices (ginger, chili pepper)
- Vinegar diluted in water
It is also believed that the dietary treatment will be more effective if taken in conjunction with an acupuncture routine.
A case study of a 45-year-old Singaporean housewife with frigophobia was studied and the results concluded: frigophobia is closely related to, and strongly influenced by cultural beliefs. Generally speaking, in therapy, treatments would consist of using low dose of anxiolytics and antidepressants, and psychological interventions. But usually when Asian women are notified of the illness, they would adopt various measures to recover. These include withdrawal from workforce, avoid exposure to cold air and wind, and most importantly they will take dietary precautions. It would be rather important to consider the patient’s cultural beliefs about the “illness” in comparison to the therapist’s belief of the illness, and then find a negotiable approach for the treatment.
Most people suffer from a form of fear of medical procedures during their life. There are many different aspects of this fear and not everyone has every part. Some of these parts include fear of surgery, fear of dental work and fear of doctors (involving fear of needles). These fears are often overlooked, but when a patient has one to the extreme it can be very damaging to their health.
Formally, medical fear is defined (by Steward and Steward, see Further reading) as "any experience that involves medical personnel or
procedures involved in the process of evaluating or modifying health status in traditional health care settings".
Education is the most common treatment, although psychotherapy, including cognitive-behavioral therapy, is indicated when the fear becomes so severe as to cause dysfunction for the individual who suffers from the phobia.
Digital phobic is an informal phrase used to describe a reluctance to become fully immersed in the digital age for being fearful of how it might negatively change or alter everyday life.
The fast-paced development of the digital world in the twenty-first century has contributed to the digital divide becoming a very real problem for a segment of the population for whom a lack of education of, interest in, or access to digital devices has left them excluded from the technological world and fearful of its growing omnipresence.
Digital phobic is part of a growing dictionary of digital vocabulary exploring the social impact of the technological age. The phrase considers the fears associated with technological evolution and change, and acknowledges the possibility of exclusion as a result of a rising reliance on technology in day-to-day life.
Research shows that opposition to attitudinal change can gradually give way to acceptance with the passage of time. Attitudinal change towards acceptance may be a slow and even tedious experience for some teachers.
The fear of spiders can be treated by any of the general techniques suggested for specific phobias. The first line of treatment is systematic desensitization – also known as exposure therapy – which was first described by South African psychiatrist Joseph Wolpe. Before engaging in systematic desensitization it is common to train the individual with arachnophobia in relaxation techniques, which will help keep the patient calm. Systematic desensitization can be done in vivo (with live spiders) or by getting the individual to imagine situations involving spiders, then modelling interaction with spiders for the person affected and eventually interacting with real spiders. This technique can be effective in just one session.
Recent advances in technology have enabled the use of virtual or augmented reality spiders for use in therapy. These techniques have proven to be effective.
Cyberphobia is a concept introduced in 1980, described as a specific phobia expressed as "an irrational fear of or aversion to computers" or more generally, a fear and/or inability to learn about new technologies.
Some forms of cyberphobia may range from the more passive forms of technophobia of those who are indifferent toward cyberspace to the responses of those who see digital technology as a medium of intrusive surveillance; more extreme responses may involve anti-technological paranoia expressed by social movements that radically oppose ‘technological society’ and ‘the New World Order’.
There are different ways that someone could experience cyberphobia. Teachers may experience a form of cyberphobia if they are forced to change their way of teaching. Another way people may experience cyberphobia is if they feel that they are incompetent, or that the new technology is not needed to advance in life, or that they feel that they lack skills for the new age of technology. Another way people may experience cyberphobia is if they feel like they are going to lose control, or the new technology will affect their status in life.
The most common reason for some degree of this phobia is the fear of spreading foodborne illnesses, through either undercooked foods, improperly prepared or cleaned foods, or concern about understanding the basic rules for proper preparation and storage of foods.
The alternative view is that the dangers, such as from spiders, are overrated and not sufficient to influence evolution. Instead, inheriting phobias would have restrictive and debilitating effects upon survival, rather than being an aid. For some communities such as in Papua New Guinea, Cambodia and South America (except Chile, Colombia, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and Bolivia), spiders are included in traditional foods. This suggests arachnophobia may be a cultural, rather than genetic trait.
Specialists may prefer to avoid the suffix "-phobia" and use more descriptive terms such as personality disorders, anxiety disorders, and avoidant personality disorder.
Though some fears are inborn, the majority are learned. Phobias develop through negative experiences and through observation. One way children begin to develop fears is by witnessing or hearing about dangers. Ollendick proposes while some phobias may originate from a single traumatizing experience, others may be caused by simpler, or less dramatic, origins such as observing another child’s phobic reaction or through the exposure to media that introduces phobias.
- 2% of parents linked their child’s phobia to a [direct conditioning episode]
- 26% of parents linked their child’s phobia to a [vicarious conditioning episodes]
- 56% of parents linked their child’s phobia to their child’s very first contact with water
- 16% of parents could not directly link their child’s phobia
In addition to asking about the origins of a child’s fear, the questionnaire asked if parents believed that “information associated with adverse consequences was the most influential factor in the development of their child’s phobia.” The results were as followed:
- 0% of parents though it was the most influential factor
- 14% of parents though it was somewhat influential
- 86% of parents though it had little to no influence
According to Child and Adolescent Mental Health, approximately 5 percent of children suffer from specific phobias and 15 percent seek treatment for anxiety-related problems. In recent years the number of children with clinically diagnosed phobias has gradually increased. Researchers are finding that the majority of these diagnoses come anxiety related phobias or society phobias.
Specific phobias are more prevalent in girls than in boys. Likewise, specific phobias are also more prevalent in older children than younger.
Flight experience with the use of anti-anxiety medications like benzodiazepines or other relaxant/depressant drugs varies from person to person. Medication decreases the person's reflective function. Though this may reduce anxiety caused by inner conflict, reduced reflective function can cause the anxious flier to believe what they are afraid will happen is actually happening.
A double-blind clinical study at the Stanford University School of Medicine suggests that anti-anxiety medication can keep a person from becoming accustomed to flight. In the research, two flights were conducted. In the first flight, though patients given alprazolam (Xanax) reported less anxiety than those receiving a placebo, their measurable stress increased. The heart rate in the alprazolam group was 114 versus 105 beats per minute in the placebo group. Those who received alprazolam also had increased respiration rates (22.7 vs 18.3 breaths/min).
On the second flight, no medication was given. Seventy-one percent of those who received alprazolam on the first flight experienced panic as compared with only 29% of those who received a placebo on the first flight. This suggests that the participants who were not medicated on the first flight benefited from the experience via some degree of desensitization.
Typical pharmacologic therapy is 0.5 or 1.0 mg of alprazolam about an hour before every flight, with an additional 0.5-1.0 mg if anxiety remains high during the flight. The alternative is to advise patients not to take medication, but encourage them to fly without it, instructing them in the principles of self-exposure.
Biologists use a number of "-phobia/-phobic" terms to describe predispositions by plants and animals against certain conditions. For antonyms, see here.
Fear of mice may be treated by any standard treatment for specific phobias. The standard treatment of animal phobia is systematic desensitization, and this can be done in the consulting room (in vivo), or in hypnosis (in vitro). Some clinicians use a combination of both in vivo and in vitro desensitization during treatment. It is also helpful to encourage patients to experience some positive associations with mice: thus, the feared stimulus is paired with the positive rather than being continuously reinforced by the negative.
Digital hoarding (also known as e-hoarding) is excessive acquisition and reluctance to delete electronic material no longer valuable to the user. The behavior includes the mass storage of digital artifacts and the retainment of unnecessary or irrelevant electronic data. The term is increasingly common in pop culture, used to describe the habitual characteristics of compulsive hoarding, but in cyberspace. As with physical space in which excess items are described as "clutter" or "junk," excess digital media is often referred to as "digital clutter."
Fear of bees (or of bee stings), technically known as melissophobia (from , "melissa", "honey bee" + , "phobos", "fear") and occasionally misspelled as melissaphobia and also known as apiphobia (from Latin "apis" for "honey bee" + "", "phobos", "fear"), is one of the common fears among people and is a kind of specific phobia.
Most people have been stung by a bee or had friends or family members stung. A child may fall victim by treading on a bee while playing outside. The sting can be quite painful and in some individuals results in swelling which may last for several days, and can also provoke allergic reactions such as anaphylaxis, so the development of loathsome fear of bees is quite natural.
Ordinary (non-phobic) fear of bees in adults is generally associated with lack of knowledge. The general public is not aware that bees attack in defense of their hive, or when accidentally squashed, and an occasional bee in a field presents no danger. Moreover, the majority of insect stings in the United States are attributed to yellowjacket wasps, which are often mistaken for a honeybee.
Unreasonable fear of bees in humans may also have a detrimental effect on ecology. Bees are important pollinators, and when, in their fear, people destroy wild colonies of bees, they contribute to environmental damage and may also be the cause of the disappearing bees.
The renting of bee colonies for pollination of crops is the primary source of income for beekeepers in the US, but as the fears of bees spread, it becomes hard to find a location for the colonies because of the growing objections of local population.
Frigophobia is defined as a persistent, abnormal, and unwarranted fear of coldness despite conscious understanding by the phobic individual and reassurance by others that there is no danger. It is also known as cheimaphobia or cheimatophobia.
In some cases, education can considerably diminish concern about physical safety. Learning how aircraft fly, how airliners are flown in practice, and other aspects of aviation can reduce anxiety. Many people have dealt with the problem by learning to fly or skydive, effectively removing their fear of the unknown. Some educate themselves; others attend courses offered by pilots or airlines.
Though education plays an important role, the knowledge that turbulence will not destroy the aircraft does not stop the amygdala - the part of the brain responsible for generating most emotional responses, and via the Hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, the release of stress hormones - from reacting. In turbulence, repeated downward movements of the plane trigger one release of stress hormones after another. A build-up of stress hormones can cause a person to be terrified despite having every reason to know logically that the plane is not in danger. In such cases, therapy — in addition to education — is needed to prevent the release of stress hormones so that the anxious flier may gain relief.
Behavioral therapies such as systematic desensitization developed by Joseph Wolpe and cognitive behavior therapy developed by Aaron Beck rest on the theory that an initial sensitizing event (ISE) has created the phobia. The gradually increased exposure needed for systematic desensitization is difficult to produce in actual flight. Desensitization using virtual flight has been disappointing. Clients report that simulated flight using computer-generated images does not desensitize them to risk because throughout the virtual flight they were aware they were in an office. Research shows Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET) to be no more effective than sitting on a parked airplane. As a practical substitute for systematic desensitization, the amygdala can be taught to regard a stimulus as benign by linking it to an experience already regarded by the amygdala as benign. This alternative has been termed systematic inhibition of the amygdala.
Hypnotherapy generally involves regression to the ISE, uncovering the event, the emotions around the event, and helping the client understand the source of their fear. It is sometimes the case that the ISE has nothing to do with flying at all.
Neurological research by Allan Schore and others using EEG-fMRI neuroimaging suggests that though it may first be manifest following a turbulent flight, fear of flying is not the result of a sensitizing event. The underlying problem is inadequate development of ability to regulate emotion when facing uncertainty, except through feeling in control or able to escape. According to Schore, the ability to adequately regulate emotion fails to develop when relationship with caregivers is not characterized by attunement and empathy. "Because these mothers are unable to regulate their own distress, they cannot regulate their infant's distress." Chronic stress and emotional dysregulation during the first two years of life inhibits development of the right prefrontal orbito cortex, and hinders the integration of the emotional control system. This renders the right prefrontal orbito cortex incapable of carrying out its executive role in the regulation of emotion. Some who disagree with the importance of early experience regard this view point as contentious. However, Harvard University and the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child state, "Genes provide the basic blueprint, but experiences influence how or whether genes are expressed. Together, they shape the quality of brain architecture and establish either a sturdy or a fragile foundation for all of the learning, health, and behavior that follow."
When it senses anything unfamiliar or unexpected, the amygdala releases stress hormones. In humans, stress hormones activate both the sympathetic nervous system and executive function. The sympathetic nervous system produces an urge to mobilize. Initially, to assess the situation, executive function overrides the urge to mobilize. If assessment reveals no threat, executive function dismisses the matter, and signals the amygdala to end stress hormone release. If risk is apparent, executive function considers what can be done to deal with the risk. Upon commitment to a plan, either of action or of inaction, executive function signals the amygdala to end stress hormone release.
In a non-phobic person, the arousal caused by the release of stress hormones results in a sense of curiosity, not a sense of emergency. Phobic response is significantly different. The phobic person equates arousal with fear, and fear as proof that there is danger. Upon arousal, the person's executive function is called upon not merely to assess the situation, but - if stress hormones are to be regulated - to prove no danger exists. If danger cannot be ruled out, executive function can no longer inhibit the urge to mobilize. Though phobics regard control as the antidote to fear, it is commitment to a plan - not control alone that ends the release of stress hormones. If a person has control but cannot commit to a plan, fear persists. It is interesting to note that commitment to any action - even unwise action - provides relief, and signals the amygdala to terminate stress hormone release.
If a phobic flier were able to fly in the cockpit, the pilot's facial response to an unexpected noise or motion would adequately prove the absence of danger. But with information in the cabin limited, it is impossible to prove no danger exists. Stress hormones continue to be released. As levels rise, anxiety increases and the urge to escape becomes paramount. Since physical escape is impossible, panic may result unless the person can escape psychologically through denial, dissociation, or distraction.
In the cognitive approach, the passenger learns to separate arousal from fear, and fear from danger. Cognitive therapy is most useful when there is no history of panic. But since in-flight panic develops rapidly, often through processes which the person has no awareness of, conscious measures may neither connect with - nor match the speed of - the unconscious processes that cause panic.
In another approach, emotion is regulated by what neuroscientist Stephen Porges calls neuroception. In social situations, arousal is powerfully regulated by signals people unconsciously send, receive, and process. For example, when encountering a stranger, stress hormone release increases the heart rate. But if the stranger's signals indicate trustworthiness, these signals override the effect of stress hormones, slow the heart, calm the person, and allow social interaction to take place. Because neuroception can completely override the effect of stress hormones, can be controlled by linking the noises and motions of flight to neuroceptive signals that calm the person.
Lastly, frequent flyer experts at Flightfox suggest that fear of flying is a reaction caused by the panic and tension of so many travellers in close quarters - once one person is uneasy the rest soon feel uncomfortable as well. Their solution, odd as it may seem, is to fly in premium class to experience flying in a comfortable and relaxed setting, so as to avoid the tension and anxiety of coach.
The condition was officially recognized in 1994 in the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 4th edition) as a specific phobia of blood/injection/injury type. Phobic level responses to injections cause sufferers to avoid inoculations, blood tests, and in the more severe cases, all medical care.
It is estimated that at least 10% of American adults have a fear of needles, and it is likely that the actual number is larger, as the most severe cases are never documented due to the tendency of the sufferer to avoid all medical treatment.
A problem with culture-bound syndromes is that they are resistant to Western-style medicine.} The standard Japanese treatment for taijin kyofusho is Morita therapy, developed by Shoma Morita in the 1910s as a treatment for the Japanese mental disorders taijin kyofusho and shinkeishitsu (nervousness). The original regimen involved patient isolation, enforced bed rest, diary writing, manual labor, and lectures on the importance of self-acceptance and positive endeavor. Since the 1930s, the treatment has been modified to include out-patient and group treatments. This modified version is known as neo-Morita therapy. Medications have also gained acceptance as a treatment option for taijin kyofusho. Other treatments include systematic desensitization, which includes slowly exposing one self to the fear, and learning relaxation skills, to extinguish fear and anxiety.
Milnacipran, a serotonin–norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI), is currently used in the treatment of taijin kyofusho and has been shown to be efficacious for the related social anxiety disorder. The primary aspect of treating this disorder is getting patients to focus their attention on their body parts and sensations.
Patients are typically sent to therapy for BII phobia in order to receive therapeutic treatments to calm their levels of anxiety and stress. Therapists use a combination of psychological and physical measures, such as applying muscle tension, in order to help the patient to be aware that there is certainly a needle in front of them.
A popular method of treatment for BII phobics is Cognitive-Behavior Therapy (CBT), which is a technique that allows the patient to become immune to their fear by being exposed to it. For BII phobics, patients are given pictures of needles or blood, they are also asked to draw pictures of these needles and speak about it. Afterwards, they are given an actual needle, and the goal is: by that point, that the patient is to be comfortable enough with their fear of needles and blood.
Some patients may refuse professional help for their phobia. Instead, a different type of treatment solely revolves around motivation and whether or not the patient is willing to undergo through treating their phobia with self-help. Similar to CBT, patients treat themselves by completing exercises to become immune to their fear. This requires no professional assistance and merely relies on the person.
Research on hypnotherapy has been looked upon to treat patients with BII phobia. Hypnotherapists are known for using relaxing therapies towards individuals with common anxiety issues. A form of therapy given to patients with BII phobia include the “Applied Tension” method, which was developed by Lars-Göran Öst and his colleagues at the University of Uppsala in Sweden. This “coping method involves creating tension on a person’s arms, legs, and chest until they start to feel their body temperature rising,” (Robertson) which usually occurs within 10 to 20 seconds. These sessions of muscle tension is repeated 5 times with 20 to 30 second breaks. Patients should complete this form of therapy over the course of 5 weeks. This helps to prevent the patient from fainting by applying tension to the body, the blood pressure steadily rises, preventing any sudden drop until their vaccination is complete. By using this treatment, there was a noticeable improvement by 90% of patients with BII phobia. Compared to patients that only used the relaxation methods, where only 60% showed noticeable improvement.
Along with muscle tension,there are several methods of physical maneuvers that can help with the treatment of BII phobia. Therapists suggest that while being injected, patients should perform movements, such as: leg crossing, muscle tensing, and holding in the breath. Patients are instructed by their therapist to perform these maneuvers simultaneously while being injected with a needle. It’s also recommended that the patient stays seated with their head lowered while performing these movements.
Digital hoarding stems from a variety of individual traits and habits, corporate conditions, and societal trends:
- Some individuals experience anxiety when faced with disposing of digital items, particularly if they fear losing something important.
- Many digital hoarders don't know how to organize their digital content or aren't in the habit of doing so, and they lack a methodology for determining which content is worth keeping.
- Keeping all of one's digital files requires less time and effort than evaluating and deleting them.
- Many businesses rely on email correspondence for decision-making and formal approvals, so employees are often careful to keep work emails in case they are needed to verify a decision later.
- Data storage devices are now so large and inexpensive that individuals and companies often do not feel the need to save data selectively.
- The widespread availability and rapid dissemination of open content on the Internet makes it easier for users to obtain digital media, which can accumulate more quickly than ever.
- Since digital media do not take up physical space, they're less likely to be perceived as clutter, and users can more easily forget the extent of what they own.
- Unlike many physical items, electronic content does not die or decay on its own; users must consciously choose to delete it.