THE CREATIVE SPARK

 Depression is a prevalent and often debilitating psychiatric disorder with a 6-month prevalence of approximately 5%. In the United States alone, approximately 20 million people have been diagnosed with depression at some point in their lives. Depression accounts for the greatest number of missed work days due to illness, with an estimated economic burden of approximately $40 billion per year. When diagnosing depression, a distinction must be made between major depressive disorder (MDD) and major depressive episode (MDE). For the diagnosis of MDE, patients must present at least five of the following symptoms for a minimum of 2 weeks: depressed mood; markedly diminished interest or pleasure or significant apathy; significant change in appetite or weight; insomnia or hypersomnia; psychomotor agitation or retardation; fatigue or loss of energy; feelings of worthlessness, excessive or inappropriate guilt, or loss of self-esteem; indecisiveness or diminished ability to think or concentr...

 An AVM is Arteriovenous Malformation, where there is tangling of the arteries and veins.   The arteries are responsible for carrying out oxygenated blood to various parts of the body from the heart. The Arteries carry blood with high pressure, this is supported by the thick elastic wall present in them which helps to sustain the blood pressure. Whereas veins carry deoxygenated blood back to heart from the body. This is in contrast to the fact that veins don't have to carry blood with pressure, thus the blood flow is sluggish as compared to arterial flow. To support this sluggish blood flow, there are valves present inside veins which prevent backflow of blood. Thus any intertwining of these two blood vessels is problematic. This can occur anywhere in the body, these are very rare in the brain and occur as a result of developmental abnormality majority of the times. A Brain AVM may or may not cause any signs and symptoms. But the signs and symptoms arise when there is rup...

 Cancer is a disease that has crippled people for centuries. Be it mentally, physically or emotionally. Hearing someone being diagnosed with Cancer is itself more tragic than the disease itself; the whole family is suffers from cancer and its effects. Especially those who have seen neurological cancers; their whole life is centred around that person.  Early diagnosed cancers are a blessing because they can be treated surgically or by drugs, but those that are asymptomatic for a long period of time and then occur suddenly with clinical presentation, are most problematic as people tend to lose the functionality of the part where it occurs, or they either die because of the severity, but a few survive by battling it, and pediatric age group is most important age group where a cancer can mean life and death situation. Pediatric cancers generally occur in bone, blood or CNS. Majority of them occur in form of leukaemia, lymphoma, or Bone marrow pathology, sometimes osteosarcoma may ...