Tourette's syndrome: what a person's life is like with this disorder

Tourette's syndrome is a mysterious medical pathology, which causes confusion among doctors during the last century. People born with this disease suffer from tics and other behavioral problems, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder and attention deficit disorder.

Stereotypes

In addition, there is a stereotype that Tourette's syndrome makes people loud and inappropriate to swear. Although in fact only 10 percent of patients experience these verbal impulses, many of them are ostracized and isolated.

Professor of Neurology from the University of Florida Michael Okun studied Tourette's syndrome for many years and recently published a book on the treatment and the general spectrum of behavioral disorders associated with it. It turned out that cursing is not even one of the most frequent symptoms of this disorder.

The fact is that over the past few years, patients have access to many exciting and life-altering methods of treatment. Scientists have reached such a stage in the study of this disease, when it becomes more understandable for society, and new methods of treatment are widely publicized.

Twitchings and tics

The French scientist Jean-Martin Charcot, the founder of modern clinical neurology, coined the eponym "Tourette syndrome" in honor of his student George Albert Gills de la Tourette, who in 1885 worked with 9 patients suffering from this ailment.

The researchers noted that Tourette's syndrome can affect several members of the family in different generations. However, over the years, new knowledge has appeared very slowly. Critical gaps in our understanding of the syndrome exist today, and half of all cases remain undetected.

How Common is Disorder

It is difficult to know even the exact number of people suffering from this syndrome. For example, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) believes that the syndrome occurs in one of 362 children, or 0.3 percent. On the other hand, the American Association of Tourette claims that the disease occurs twice as often - one in 166 children (0.6 percent).

In some people, Tourette's syndrome manifests very mildly, with symptoms such as non-simultaneous flashing of the eyes or slight twitching of the body. In many cases, motor tics disappear in late adolescence or early adulthood. Many patients can even lead a relatively normal life.

Work of the brain

Scientists were able to better understand the syndrome after they learned more about the brain as a whole. The normal functions of the human brain are dictated by rhythmic vibrations, which are repeated again and again, about the same as a popular song on the radio. These fluctuations change and are modulated, and are aimed at controlling various human behaviors.

If the fluctuation "goes bad", it can lead to disabling tics or other behavioral symptoms of Tourette's syndrome.

Important for the development of new treatments for Tourette is that we can change these fluctuations through rehabilitation therapy, cognitive behavioral intervention therapy, medications such as tetrabenazine, or even deep brain stimulation, which involves the use of a small probe. With its help, electrical impulses arrive in the brain, which destroy the abnormal vibrations responsible for tics.

Research

The genetics of Tourette's syndrome remains not fully understood. Despite the fact that the disease tends to manifest itself in families, no DNA has yet been found that connects all or at least most of the cases.

At the same time, technologies offer new means of detection and treatment. Scientists have recorded ticks in the human brain and even developed the first intelligent devices for their detection and suppression.

Some researchers are exploring new generations of drugs that can reduce the side effects that can occur if old-fashioned drugs are used, such as haloperidol, which is traditionally used to treat Tourette. Scientists are also looking for ways to suppress or modulate inappropriate brain signals. One of the solutions can be called cannabinoid receptors.

The use of marijuana for the treatment of symptoms of Tourette's syndrome has some scientific significance. Cannabinoid receptors have been found in many areas of the brain. In fact, the cannabinoid receptor CB1 is in large numbers in those areas of the brain that are believed to be responsible for the manifestations of Tourette's syndrome.

Life with Tourette's Syndrome

It may seem to the outside observer that patients with Tourette's syndrome outgrow him in adolescence or early adulthood, but in reality in most cases this does not happen. Although motor and vocal tics are indeed weakening, obsessive-compulsive disorder and behavioral symptoms may persist and even intensify.

If you do not diagnose and correct these behavioral characteristics in Tourette's syndrome, it will be difficult for a person to adapt to normal life, since behavioral symptoms can affect him more than the noticeable motor and vocal tics.

Scientists are constantly trying to find new methods of treatment, but patients and their families can do much to alleviate the condition of the patient today. Many changes are often very simple and can be implemented in patients' lives.

A complex treatment will play a key role here. For example, a social worker can help build an individual school education plan and help the family connect to resources that can turn difficult school situations into success stories. A rehabilitation therapist can now help get rid of tics without using medication.

A team of scientists led by Professor Okun took care of 10,000 patients with locomotor disorders at the University of Florida, as well as tens of thousands of others in the South East Regional Association of Tourette of the American Center of Excellence. These teams of specialists include neurologists, psychiatrists, rehabilitation specialists, social workers and scientists from the universities of South Florida, Emory, Alabama and South Carolina.

Why try different methods of therapy

There are good reasons to try various treatments, even if it seems to you that none of them work. Patients should learn to recognize when therapy does not work, and discuss with their doctors other options. The fact is that if brain oscillations do not stop, they can in some cases of Tourette's syndrome lead to injuries, and even paralysis. Today even the most severe cases have a chance of treatment due to deep stimulation of the brain.

Although Tourette's syndrome remains a mystery in the public eye, it is important that scientists offer families a wide range of treatments that provide tangible improvements in quality of life. This is definitely something to talk about.