Home Health and Illness The Disorders Of The Mind And Nerves

Neurological Disorder

When it comes to the disorders of mind and nerve the normal reaction of the Indians are general negative. There lot of scepticism about these disorders. These disorders consider often considered to be something ranging from mental weaknesses to incurable disorders due curses of the supernatural. People tend to go to faith healers than to some qualified Doctors. More often than not, these disorders are hidden from all especially from the curious onlookers. All in a combination makes the things bad to worse. Nevertheless, as matter of fact there are very good specialists of neurosciences in India and they have good number of therapies with them. Only thing is that we have to reach out to them and get the advices medicines. It is to be kept in the mind many of therapies are long drawn. But abrupt stopping of therapies might lead to relapse and treatment failures.

We know that there are diseases of nerves that lead to neurological disorders. These disorders have specific neurological malfunctioning.

Mental disorders are the disorders of the mind. These disorders affect thought, perception, memory, emotion, will and imagination including the malfunctioning of conscious, subconscious and unconscious part of the mind. Disorders of the mind is vast subject and it requires specialized effort to understand and treat the disorders But best part is these diseases are they are treatable and definitely not a disease of the weak mind.

Epilepsy

This is on of most common neurological disorders. The disease is because of synchronized excessive discharge in the set of neurons results in seizures. When a person has recurrent seizure then the person is termed as epileptic.

Epilepsy can be main broadly classified into following category.

  • Partial epilepsy - Here the epilepsy is due to part of the brain getting affected. They can be of two types - Simple partial seizure and Complex partial seizure.
  • Generalized epilepsy - Here the complete brain is under the influence of seizure attack. They are off of following category.
    • Absence Seizure
    • Myoclonic seizure
    • Clonic seizure
    • Tonic seizure
    • Generalised Clonic Tonic Seizure
  • Apart form this there another form of seizure, which is Partial Epilepsy with Secondary Generalization Here the epilepsy starts as a partial one but subsequently gets generalized.
  • The other for of epilepsy which are seen are
    • Atonic seizure (Drop attack)
    • Lennox Gastraut Syndrome (LGS) or the mixed variety of seizures

Causes of Epilepsy

  • Trauma
  • infection
  • Tumours
  • Metabolic disorders
  • Vascular dysfunction
  • Immunization
  • Neurosurgery
  • Drugs
  • Toxins
  • Anti Natal and Prenatal Injury
  • Cardiovascular Diseases
  • Degenerative Disorders
  • Others

Factors Affecting Seizures

  • Stress
  • Sleep Deprivation
  • Sleep Wake Cycle
  • Alcohol & Alcohol Withdrawal
  • Metabolic Disturbances
  • Toxins and Drugs
  • Sleep Wake Cycle
  • Menstrual cycle

Reflex Epilepsy

Here the seizures are precipitated due to certain specific causes like,

  • Photosensitivity - (Bright lights or visual stimuli can induce epilepsy)
  • Startled induced seizure- (Sudden startle can induce epilepsy)
  • Primary reading-(During examination of jerks and reflexes can induce epilepsy)
  • Other forms like eating, deep thought, certain sound or music

Treatments

Goal of treatment - to achieve complete seizure control with least / no side effect.

This can be achieved by using first line drugs in most of the patients. In others it may take time find the right medication and seizure control can be there at the expense of side effects. In some the goal may be achieve.

Monotherapy

Single drug that can produce optimal seizure control in 80% of the patients with minimal side effects.

Combination Therapy

It is needed in 20% of the patients where epilepsy remains uncontrolled despite of a good mono-therapy. There we need a skilful combination of drugs. The goal is to control epilepsy with minimal problems.

Cerebella's antiepileptics

  • First line therapy (Our Products)
    • Cereptal 150/300/450 (Oxcarbazepine)
    • Divella ER 250/500/750 (Divalproex Extended release)
  • Add on therapy (Our Products)
    • Bazzy 5/10/20 ( Clobazam)
    • Xenotril SL 0.25/0.50/1.0/ 2.0 MG(Clonazepam sublingual tablets)
    • Ictalam 25/50/100 (Lamotrigine)
    • Gabella 100/300/400 mg(Gabapentin)

Neuralgia And Neuropathy

Neuralgia is a painful disorder of the nerves. They are of following types.

  • Trigeminal Neuralgia (TN)
  • A Typical Facial Pain
  • Post-herpetic Neuralgia (caused by shingles or herpes)

Often the form of neuropathy is further broken down as to cause, or other type, such as small fibre peripheral neuropathy, which is idiopathic.

Causes

  • Diabetes (Diabetic Neuropathy)
  • Herpes Zoster Infection
  • HIV-AIDS, Toxins, Alcoholism
  • Trauma
  • Various neurotoxins and autoimmune conditions

Symptoms / Treatment

  • Opioid
  • Amitriptyline
  • Capsaicin
  • Valproate
  • Carbamazepine
  • Oxcarbazepine
  • Gabapentin
  • Pregabalin
  • Methylcobalamin

Cerebella's Neuro-Analgesics (Our Products)

  • Goldep 10 (Amitriptyline)
  • Gabella M (Gabapentin 300& Methycobalamin 500 mcg)
  • Methovit Alpha (Methycobalamin 1500 mcg with ALA and Folic acid)

Dementia

Dementia (from Latin de- "apart, away" + men's (genitive mentis) "mind") is the progressive decline in cognitive function due to damage or disease in the brain beyond what might be expected from normal aging. Although dementia is far more common in the geriatric population, it may occur in any stage of adulthood. In dementia, affected areas in cognition may be memory, attention, language, and problem solving. Higher mental functions are affected first in the process. Especially in the later stages of the condition, affected persons may be disoriented in time (not knowing what day of the week, day of the month, month, or even what year it is), in place (not knowing where they are), and in person (not knowing who they are). Symptoms of dementia can be classified as either reversible or irreversible depending upon the etiology of the disease. Less than 10% of cases of dementia are due to causes which may presently be reversed with treatment. Proper differential diagnosis between the types of dementia (see below) will require, at the least, referral to a specialist, e.g. a geriatric internist, geriatric psychiatrist, neurologist, neuropsychologist or geropsychologist. However, there exist some brief tests (5-15 minutes) that have reasonable reliability and can be used in the office or other setting to screen cognitive status for deficits which are considered pathological.

Major Types

  • Alzheimer's Disease
  • Vascular Dementia (also known as multi-infarct dementia)
  • Dementia with Lewy Bodies (DLB)
  • Alcohol-Induced Persisting Dementia
  • Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
  • Dementia due to Huntington's disease
  • Dementia due to metabolic disorder
  • Dementia due to Parkinson's disease
  • Pseudo dementia (associated with clinical depression and bipolar disorder)
  • Substance-induced persisting dementia
  • Dementia due to multiple etiologies
  • Dementia due to other general medical conditions (i.e. end stage renal failure, cardiovascular disease etc.)
  • Dementia not otherwise specified (used in cases where no specific criteria is met)

Treatment

Except for the treatable types listed above, there is no cure to this illness, although scientists are progressing in making a type of medication that will slow down the process. Cholinesterase inhibitors are often used early in the disease course. Cognitive and behavioural interventions may also be appropriate. Educating and providing emotional support to the caregiver (or carer) is of importance as well.

Cerebella offering (Our Products)

  • Donaz 5/10 mg (Donepezil)
  • Pirabel 400/800/1200/syrup/ injections

Stroke

Stroke or cerebrovascular accident (CVA) is the rapidly developing loss of brain functions due to a disturbance in the blood vessels supplying blood to the brain. This can be due to ischemia (lack of blood supply) caused by thrombosis or embolism, or due to a haemorrhage. Stroke is a medical emergency and can cause permanent neurological damage, complications and death if not promptly diagnosed and treated. It is the third leading cause of death and the leading cause of adult disability Risk factors for stroke include advanced age, hypertension (high blood pressure), previous stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA), diabetes, high cholesterol, cigarette smoking, atrial fibrillation, migraine with aura, and thrombophilia (a tendency to thrombosis).

Blood pressure is the most important modifiable risk factor of stroke.

The traditional definition of stroke, devised by the World Health Organisation in the 1970s, is a "neurological deficit of cerebrovascular cause that persists beyond 24 hours or is interrupted by death within 24 hours".

Treatment of stroke is occasionally with thrombolysis ("clot buster"), but usually with supportive care (physiotherapy and occupational therapy) and secondary prevention with antiplatelet drugs (aspirin and often dipyridamole), blood pressure control, statins and anticoagulation. More over there should be effort to reduce the cerebral edema. For this reason instilling anti edematic agents like glycerine and Mannitol are to be used. Moreover to increase the cerebral fluidity agents like piracetam is required. They improve the fluidity of the cerebral cells and restore the normalcy.

Cerebella's stroke masters (Our Products)

  • Pirabel 400/800/1200/syrup/ injections (Piracetam)
  • Olmann (Glycerine 10gm with Mannitol 10 gm/ 100ml)

Spinal Chord injury and cerebral inflammation

Inflammation of brain and spinal cord can be due to injury or surgery or due to infections. To tackle the inflammations one has take steps as fast as possible and uses the most potent and appropriate steroids.

Spinal cord injury can be extremely dangerous and life threatening. A prompt intervention can save the lives of the patients. Same holds good other forms of inflammation. Bolus dose of steroids are to be instilled to save patients life.

Cerebella's life saving steroids (Our Products)

  • Solumark (Methylprednisolone 500/1000 mg inj)