Although the field of eating disorders is still relatively young, compared to many other specialties, many advances have been and are being made in diagnosis and treatment. Several articles in this issue attest to this.
The growth of patient outreach and screening via the Internet can be seen in the recent screening tool that NEDA and a group of clinicians developed. Another is the changes in long-time treatment approaches, such as the shorter course of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) proposed by Dr. Glenn Waller at the recent ICED meeting in New York. In our lead article, Dr. Erin K. Knopf and Dr. Philip Mehler, of the Eating Recovery Center in Denver, CO, bring us up to date on managing low bone mineral density in teens with eating disorders. While normalization of nutritional intake and weight gain are the upmost priorities for treatment of an adolescent with AN, and are necessary to stave off further bone mineral loss. They also share some of the newer approaches being used to help restore bone loss.
And, in the continuing search for better treatment approaches for patients with eating disorders, this issue contains a report by Dr. Jennifer Beveridge and co-workers at Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorne, Australia, of an innovative peer mentoring program using patients recovered from an eating disorder as mentors to patients currently undergoing treatment.The mentoring relationship was a positive experience for both mentees and mentors, instilling increased hope for recovery in mentees and an opportunity for mentors to reflect on their own recovery.
– MKS
