that aspects of an association such as strength, consistency, specificity, and temporality be considered in attempting to distinguish causal from noncausal associations in the epidemiological situation. (See Bradford-Hill criteria.) He did not note however, that temporality is the only necessary criterion among those aspects. Directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) are increasingly used in epidemiology to help enlighten causal thinking. Psychology
Psychologists take an empirical approach to causality, investigating how people and non-human animals detect or infer causation from sensory information, prior experience and innate knowledge. AttributionAttribution theory is the theory concerning how people explain individual occurrences of causation. Attribution can be external (assigning causality to an outside agent or force—claiming that some outside thing motivated the event) or internal (assigning causality to factors within the person—taking personal responsibility or accountability for ones actions and claiming that the person was directly responsible for the event). Taking causation one step further, the type of attribution a person provides influences their future behavior. The intention behind the cause or the effect can be covered by the subject of action. See also accident; blame; intent; and responsibility. Causal powersWhereas David Hume argued that causes are inferred from non-causal observations, Immanuel Kant claimed that people have innate assumptions about causes. Within psychology, Patricia Cheng attempted to reconcile the Humean and Kantian views. According to her power PC theory, people filter observations of events through an intuition that causes have the power to generate (or prevent) their effects, thereby inferring specific cause-effect relations.
Kasabach–Merritt syndrome, also known as hemangioma with thrombocytopenia, is a rare disease, usually of infants, in which a vascular tumor leads to decreased platelet counts and sometimes other bleeding problems, which can be life-threatening. It is also known as hemangioma thrombocytopenia syndrome. It is named after Haig Haigouni Kasabach and Katharine Krom Merritt, the two pediatricians who first described the condition in 1940. Signs and symptoms
Initially a vascular lesion is usually noted on the skin which can be firm and hard (indurated). Areas of tiny red dots (petechiae) can appear around the lesion or on other parts of the body. If the vascular lesion is internal, these petechiae and bruising can be seen on the skin. Bruising and spontaneous bleeding can also occur. The tumors are not hemangiomas. They usually present in young infants, less than three months of age, but have also been reported in the toddler age group. These tumors occur in the extremities, chest, neck, abdomen and pelvis. They infiltrate across tissue and can be aggravated by interventions, infection and trauma. When the tumors associated with KMP are internal such as in the chest or abdomen, they can cause significant illness and can be life-threatening due to bleeding. Internal lesions can take a longer time to diagnose. Pathophysiology
Kasabach–Merritt syndrome is usually caused by a hemangioendothelioma or other vascular tumor, often present at birth. Although these tumors are relatively common, they only rarely cause Kasabach–Merritt syndrome.When these tumors are large or are growing rapidly, sometimes they can trap platelets, causing severe thrombocytopenia.