If a decent person starts to shout out obscene words without reason and make incomprehensible movements, then do not immediately call him rude or write to the crazy. There is a possibility that he has syndrome Tourette or Gilles de la Tourette, which is expressed in this way.
The causes of the Gilles de la Tourette syndrome
This syndrome is a neuropsychological disorder, the main cause of which is most often a genetic deviation from the norm, that is, it is inherited. And men suffer them several times more often than women. There are also versions that triggering the development of Tourette's syndrome may be a transmitted infectious disease or the use of strong drugs with a large number of side effects.
Diagnosis of Tourette's Syndrome
Most often this diagnosis is made to a person even in childhood, when the same tick is repeated for a long time (at least a year). The emergence of symptoms of this psychoneurological disorder already in an adult as a result of taking strong psychotropic medications or a transferred disease is not proof that it is a given syndrome. To diagnose this problem, long-term observations of the patient and a number of tests (blood, electroencephalogram), which will help to exclude other causes of similar symptoms, are required.
Symptoms of Gilles de la Tourette syndrome
People with Tourette's syndrome suffer from different types of tics at the same time, therefore, before the publication of Gilles de la Tourette's observations in 1885, it was believed that the demon was being introduced into them. Two main groups of tics were revealed, which are manifested in this disorder: vocal and motor disorders.
Voice ticks
By them is meant a multiple repetition of irrelevant at this moment or meaningless sounds. It can be coughing, whistling, mooing and clicking. These manifestations refer to simple tics . Also found in patients and complex - echolalia (repetition of whole sentences or individual words) and coprolalia (shouting indecent phrases and words). They are not the result of poor upbringing or mental retardation, since they do not carry a personal orientation and are pronounced against the will of the speaker.
Motor Tics
They are also simple and complex, and they can touch almost all muscle groups. Simple motor tics are a short movement of one part of the body. It can be blinking, twitching the head, tassels or shoulders, doing grimaces, sticking out the tongue, sharp lifting of the leg, etc.
By the complex are meant longer involuntary movements, during which a person can even harm himself. These include jumping, beating on objects, echopraxia (repeat after others) and copropraxia (offensive gestures).
All these symptoms can manifest themselves more strongly, sometimes weaker, more often, then less often. Depending on this, doctors allocate 4 degrees of the syndrome:
- light;
- moderate;
- expressed;
- heavy.
In adults, unlike children, the symptoms are less pronounced and appear only in moments of psychological instability (after stress or intense emotions). Many even know how to suppress them, because before the start of a tick they feel a certain tension in the body. Most often, after that, the next attack is stronger.
Outside the seizures, a person with Tourette's syndrome is no different from everyone else, since this disease does not destroy his psyche and does not affect his mental development .