THURSDAY, Feb. 14 (HealthDay News) -- At least 82 youths have died from playing the "choking game" since 1995, a new government report shows.

Also known as the "blackout game," "pass out game," "scarf game," "space monkey" and other monikers, the activity involves intentionally trying to strangle oneself or another with hands or some sort of noose to briefly achieve an euphoric state.

Youth apparently hope to get a "cool and dreamy feeling" from the activity, explained Robin L. Toblin, of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Nearly all parents whose children died were not aware of, or familiar with, this activity before the child's death, therefore it's important that parents, educators and health-care providers become aware of the choking game and learn to recognize the warning signs," Toblin said. "If parents believe their child is playing, they should speak to them about the life-threatening dangers and seek additional help if necessary."

Similar games have probably been played for generations, according to Toblin, whose report is published in the Feb. 15 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a CDC publication. "What is new is that youth are playing alone and using ligatures which are risk factors that make them more likely to die from this activity," she said.

Almost 96 percent of deaths for which sufficient detail was available occurred while the youth was alone, and 93 percent of parents said they were not aware of the game until their child died.

Ligatures can include T-shirts, scarves, bungee cords, dog leashes and more, said Toblin, who spoke during a Thursday teleconference.

This report is the first attempt to measure the magnitude of the problem nationally. The only prior information on the prevalence of the game came from an Ohio youth survey, which found that 11 percent of youths aged 12 to 18 and 19 percent of youths aged 17 to 18 reported ever playing the game.

Because the choking game is not listed on death certificates or in any public health database, the CDC researchers relied on media reports since the 1970s, as well as information from two Web sites devoted to awareness of the issue. Deaths listed on a Web site were only included in the report if they were also addressed in news reports.

The earliest choking-game death was reported in the news in 1995. From 1995 to 2004, three or fewer such deaths were reported.

However, that number surged to 22 in 2005 and to 35 in 2006. For the first 10 months of 2007, the number declined again, to nine deaths. "It's not known whether fewer children are undertaking the activity or fewer media are reporting," Toblin said.

More than 86 percent of the deaths involved males, with most fatalities occurring in the 11 to 16 age range (the age range overall was 6 to 19 years, with a median age of 13).

By contrast, suicide deaths attributed to hanging/suffocation tend to increase every year and peak at the age of 19. The report did not include suicide attempts or autoerotic activity, which is considered a different behavior. It also did not include injuries from the choking game, which can include loss of consciousness, concussion, fractures, hemorrhages of the eyes, as well as permanent neurological disabilities such as seizures.

Deaths were identified in 31 states, with no geographic concentration. The report also included case studies of two individuals who had died.

The first was of a 13-year-old boy who died at a hospital one hour after his mother found him in the corner of his bedroom with a belt around his neck. After his death, teens told the director of a local counseling agency that the game had been played at local parties. The second case was that of a 13-year-old girl whose brother found her dead one morning, hanging from a belt and shoelace fashioned into a noose on the door of her bedroom closet. She had died the night before. Prior to her death, the girl had told a cousin that she had played the choking game at her school's locker room and that another group of girls at her school had been suspended for playing the game.

The warning signs that your child might be playing this game include:

• discussion of the game, including other terms for it;
• bloodshot eyes;
• marks on the neck;
• severe headaches;
• disorientation after spending time alone;
• ropes, scarves and belts tied to bedroom furniture or doorknobs or found knotted on the floor;
• unexplained presence of things like dog leashes, choke collars and bungee cords;

More information

For more on the choking game, visit Games Adolescents Shouldn't Play  .

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 13 (HealthDay News) -- Preschoolers with poor vision significantly improved their test scores within six weeks of consistently wearing prescription glasses, a new study shows.

"It has been theorized that when young children have early vision problems that are undiagnosed and uncorrected, their development and performance in school are impacted," Stuart I. Brown, chairman of ophthalmology and director of the Shiley Eye Center University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine, said in a prepared statement. "This study shows that children with vision impairment do perform below the norm in visual-motor coordination tests, and that they catch up quickly once they are given corrective [lenses]."

The study, published in the February issue of the Archives of Ophthalmology, followed 70 children, aged 3 to 5, about half of whom had normal vision, and half were diagnosed with ametropia -- abnormal refractive eye conditions leading to poor vision, such as astigmatism. The children took two standardized tests that relate directly to future school performance: the Beery-Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration (VMI) and the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-Revised (WPPSI-R).

Before being given glasses, the vision-impaired children scored significantly lower on both tests, demonstrating reduced ability of the brain to coordinate the eyes with the hands, the researchers said.

That changed after the vision-impaired children were provided with prescription glasses and monitored with the assistance of their families over six weeks to ensure that they wore their glasses consistently.

Upon retesting, the VMI scores of the children with vision problems were at the same level as the scores of the children with normal eyesight. The WPPSI-R scores did not show the same dramatic improvement, but the researchers speculated that the test might not be as sensitive to changes in visual-motor integration skills tested by the VMI tool. The researchers are following the children to test whether the WPPSI-R scores change further over time.

"Amazingly, this is the first controlled study of preschool children to show the cognitive disadvantage preschool children have when they are farsighted and/or have astigmatism, as well as to show the benefit of early intervention with glasses," study co-author Barbara Brody, director of the Center for Community Ophthalmology at the Shiley Eye Center, said in a prepared statement.

More information

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality offers a guide to good health for children.

TUESDAY, Feb. 12 (HealthDay News) -- People with a personal or family history of learning disabilities may be more at risk for a rare type of dementia that causes them to lose language abilities as they age, according to a new report.

The condition, known as primary progressive aphasia, causes language abilities to be slowly and progressively impaired, even though the person's other brain functions appear unaffected for at least the first two years, according to background information for the article in the February issue of Archives of Neurology.

Although risk factors for Alzheimer's disease have been well studied, much less is known about risk factors for primary progressive aphasia, the authors wrote.

Researchers, led by Emily Rogalski, then of Northwestern University and now of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, studied 699 people -- about half with no dementia and the other half with either primary progressive aphasia, Alzheimer's disease or a related disorder known as frontotemporal dementia.

Patients with primary progressive aphasia were more likely to have had learning disabilities or a close family member with learning disabilities than were those with other forms of dementia or without dementia. The review of patients with both aphasia and learning disabilities showed families with unusually high rates of learning problems, especially dyslexia.

For example, in three cases, nine of the 10 children of the participants were reported to have had a history of specific learning disability in the area of language, the authors wrote.

"In our clinical practice, we encounter many patients with primary progressive aphasia who report that spelling was never their strong suit or that they could not learn new languages, but who would not have identified themselves as having a learning disability," they continued.

The association suggests that some people or families may have an underlying susceptibility to difficulties with the language network.

"This relationship may exist in only a small subgroup of persons with dyslexia without necessarily implying that the entire population with dyslexia or their family members are at higher risk of primary progressive aphasia," the authors concluded.

More information

The National Aphasia Association has more about primary progressive aphasia  .

THURSDAY, Feb. 7 (HealthDay News) -- In a finding that seems to turn conventional wisdom on its head, researchers report that babies of teenage fathers are more likely to be born with health problems than babies born to men over 40.

"We found that being a teenage father was associated with an increased risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes, including preterm birth, low birth weight and neonatal deaths," said Dr. Shi Wu Wen, an associate professor at the University of Ottawa Department of Epidemiology & Community Medicine.

In the study, Wen's team used data from the National Center for Health Statistics to collect information on 2,614,966 births in the United States between 1995 and 2000. To isolate the effects of the teen fathers' age on the outcome of pregnancy, the researchers compensated for the mother's contribution by choosing women 20 to 29 years old.

Women in this age group are less likely to be affected by fertility problems, which can have an effect on birth outcomes, Wen noted. "We also excluded infants with birth defects," he said. "This may explain why we didn't see adverse effects amongst older fathers."

The researchers found that babies born to teenage fathers had a 15 percent increased risk of premature birth, a 13 percent increased risk for low birth weight, and a 17 percent increased risk for being small for gestational age.

These babies also had a 22 percent increased risk of dying within the first month after birth, and a 41 percent increased risk of dying in the first four weeks to one year after birth, although the absolute risk was small -- less than 0.5 percent, the researchers said.

Babies of fathers 40 and older did not experience the same risks, Wen said.

"The public has paid attention to teenage pregnancy, but mostly to teenage mothers," Wen said. "But here we show that teenage fathers are also at high risk. The public and health agencies should pay attention to teenage fathers."

The findings are reported in the February issue of Human Reproduction.

Wen said it's not clear why infants of teenage fathers are at greater risk for health problems. However, he suspects that social factors such as income and lifestyle play a role.

"Young fathers have less stable employment," Wen said. "In addition, teenagers are at risk for more risky behavior like smoking and alcohol and drug use. These are known to be associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes.

"Teenage fathers may also be emotionally less stable," he added. "We know that stress is a risk factor for adverse pregnancy outcomes as well."

One expert agrees that more attention should be paid to teenage fathers and their contribution to the health of their children.

"Paternal age is an ignored and understudied and underestimated contributor to neonatal outcomes," said Dr. F. Sessions Cole, director of newborn medicine and head of the neonatal intensive care unit at St. Louis Children's Hospital. "It's 50 percent egg and 50 percent sperm that form the baby, and 100 percent of the blame is attributed to mothers," he said.

"The risk-taking behaviors of adolescent males probably are a significant part of the reason why their sperm are associated with more adverse neonatal outcomes," Cole said. "These risk-taking behaviors impact sperm in ways we don't know."

Cole believes teenage fathers, like teenage mothers, should receive prenatal counseling. "That way, a prospective father can get some sense of what he can do to optimize the outcome," he said.

More information

For more on healthy babies, visit the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.